Since 1987
Thirty-five years of building well, for the families and businesses who trust us to do it properly.
Since 1987, G.L. Smith & Sons has grown into one of Hertfordshire's and South East England's best-known family-run building companies. The same family has carried the name onto site every morning, and the work has spoken for itself ever since: homes built from the ground up, period properties carefully brought back to life, and the everyday extensions and renovations that quietly change how a family lives.
What has not changed in all that time is the standard. We have held to it the whole way through, and it has earned us a strong reputation with our clients and within the trade. We take on the early starts, the problem-solving and the detail that others leave out, because the building should still feel right long after we have packed up and gone. The award we care about most is the simplest one: the complete satisfaction of the loyal clients we have earned.
What we build
From a single-storey extension to a home built entirely from the ground up.
New builds and bespoke homes. We design and construct individual homes from first sketch to handover, working closely with each client so the finished house is genuinely theirs. Foundations, structure, services and finishes are all delivered by a team that has done it many times before.
Extensions and renovations. Most of our work is improving homes that families already love. A well-judged extension or a thorough renovation can completely transform how a property lives, opening up light, space and connection to the garden without losing the character that drew people to it in the first place.
Listed-building restoration and commercial projects. We restore and conserve period and listed buildings using traditional materials and skills, and we deliver commercial schemes to the same standard. Drawings, planning and building-regulations design are handled in-house through our own studio, so a project can move from idea to site without the gaps that slow others down.
Ground to finish
Every job, start to finish, by the same hands you met on day one.
It begins in the ground. We set out, dig and pour our own foundations, manage the drainage and groundworks, and get the difficult, invisible part of a build right before anything rises above the soil. Get the bottom right and everything above it follows.
Then comes the structure: steelwork and timber frames, brickwork laid by hand, roofs cut, felted and tiled to last. We carry the trades that matter through our own team, so the people setting out the footings are the same people you see fixing the ridge.
And then the finish. Kitchens, joinery, floors and the hundred small decisions that turn a building site back into a home. The quality, the effort and the pride taken in the job really do show, and that is the part of the work we are most known for.
