Natural Element Homes — Local services in Athens

Beautiful homes HOWEVER, you’ll need to rob several banks to build it. We looked at the model, the smallest model they had, were told cost to build would be 300k with a basement. We bit, paid the 2500$ to get started and 4 weeks later were contacted by 2 different builders who wanted 450-475k to build it. Nice salesman but doesn’t know his product. I’ve been told since from several builders not to ever buy one of the “package homes” they are a rip off. Lesson learned. BTW management only refunded 1/2 of my deposit.

Responding to “The Owner” After reading you belated response I notice your figures are way off. I’m not surprised as this was the case from the start. I’m not responding to argue. I only want to let the consumers know what the facts are before they get to involved.

I think the biggest problem with your response to my review are the false statements you’ve made. No need to get into that. All one has to do is look at the numbers you stated, they just don’t make sense. It boils down to my salesman telling me several times that “they” can build what I want for 300K. He stated the total cost of the home would be 3x the “package” cost which would be 3x 107k. I told him I could do 321k. My salesman sent this to 2 builders and the lowest estimate came back at 475k. My salesman called me back and said the builders must “be drunk”? Then he called me back the next day and agreed with the high cost? SMH

Consumers: know what you’re gettting into here. This company only sells you a partial list of supplies. My supplie list to build this home was only 1-1/4 pages.

Again my sales guy is a very nice man but his downfall was his lack of knowledge of his product and the industry as a whole.

Dear Owner, you never called me or even spoke to me. I tried calling you but you only communicated through my salesman. You’ve mentioned many untrue numbers and statements I have made only to make you look better. That’s fine. I will let consumers decide who to believe here. If they do their homework on your company I’m confident they will make the right decision. I’m about done with my new home now. About the same home but all brick and 3700sq feet and I saved over 150k. Lesson learned.

Good luck...

We are very disappointed in our experience with Robert Lambert, owner and president of both Big Timber Builders and Natural Elements Homes. Initially we thought we had a good working relationship with Mr. Lambert and his associates. Zoltan was always responsive and helpful. Diane was creative and patient as we fine-tuned our plan. Randy provided a lot of good ideas. But then, after many months of planning, we feel like we were "ghosted." Even though I had an appointment with Randy, and went to the home office 30 miles from my home, he was in another meeting, and did not acknowledge my presence or apologize for not seeing me. He was supposed to be our project manager. He was replaced by Dylan who was far less experienced and not familiar with our project when he came on site. On multiple occasions, both by email and phone, we asked Robert for an estimate on our home. For several months we were told he almost had it done. At Robert's direction we spent over $10,000 getting everything ready for construction that we could - cutting down 6 huge, beautiful trees, getting soil tests and a septic permit, recording a deed in order to get an address and the driveway permit, meeting with utility representatives to arrange for temporary power. When we finally ran out of patience and emailed Robert that we decided to not build, he did not even respond to the email. My advice: DON'T WASTE YOUR...

The homes are very beautiful. My husband and I drove from Chicago and called to tell them we were coming about 3 hours before arrival to make sure someone would be there to talk with us. We have both always loved the look of timber beams but had never had the time to seriously look into building a home with these beautiful beams.

We arrived at the Sweetwater TN models and met the salesman behind the desk. What an unfruitful and unpleasant experience. We were told how expensive these homes were to build. We expected they weren’t inexpensive to build because of the craftsmanship. We are expecting to move to the Watts Barr area in the next year, which would include buying a lot. We told the salesman (Phil), we were there for information. He just kept talking about how expensive these homes are to build. We didn’t give him any limit on price! He then told us to go ahead and walk through the models (unaccompanied). No one to ask questions! No one to explain the differences in log, timber or hybrid! He did give us a magazine in which we learned that there are materials that can be used to get the look without as much maintenance. Who knew? We sure didn’t. Good thing they handed us a book. We are going to...