Carpenter in Palm Valley

Palm Valley grew from 63 residents in 1930 to 3,501 in 1940, when the Ponte Vedra Beach resort opened and the Intracoastal was improved. The homes from that era are still standing along Palm Valley Road and Roscoe Boulevard, and they are genuine old-house work.

Expect true 1x lumber rather than today's dimensional stock, stud spacing that follows no standard, plaster and lath in places, walls visibly out of plumb and floors that run downhill. Nothing gets pre-built to a plan dimension here. We measure in the room, cut the case oversized, and scribe it to the wall and ceiling that exist.

Matching trim is its own skill. Older profiles here are taller and simpler than anything on a big box shelf, so we pull a section off your existing casing and mill to match thickness and reveal.

Then there is water. The Intracoastal Waterway splits Palm Valley east and west, with the Palm Valley Bridge carrying Palm Valley Road over it, and many of these homes sit on brackish water with docks and lifts. The community is two to four miles in from the Atlantic, so there is salt influence but less direct spray than on the ocean. What really drives the work is shade and damp, because Palm Valley kept its mature live oak canopy, and heavy canopy means slower drying and more moisture.

So rot repair on porch trim, columns and jambs is a real line item on waterfront and shaded lots. Solid-wood casework also needs to acclimate inside the house before milling, with expansion allowance designed into the joinery.

The newer pockets, including Haven at Palm Valley, are a different animal: square, wood framed, straightforward. We treat them that way.

Everything we build freestanding in the shop is on the custom woodworking page.

This is the opposite of the surrounding area. Much of older Palm Valley is unplatted or sits in small subdivisions with no architectural review at all. The newer infill subdivisions do carry HOAs, so it depends on your address.

Where there is no review board, you can commission genuinely custom exterior millwork without a submittal: a porch rail detail, a bracket, a custom column, a stained front entry. Palm Valley is unincorporated, so St. Johns County handles permitting, and structural exterior work generally needs a permit whether or not an HOA exists.

We are comfortable in an old house. We expect plaster, odd stud spacing and true 1x lumber, and we price for it instead of discovering it on day two. We measure and scribe on site, always. We match existing trim profiles rather than talking you into replacing every stick in the house. We let solid stock acclimate before we mill it. And when your property has no HOA, we tell you what that opens up.

• Watch the Palm Valley Boat Parade, the annual holiday boat parade on the Intracoastal.
• Launch at the Palm Valley West Boat Ramp, a $1.1 million St. Johns County facility.
• Read the History of Palm Valley historical marker near the Palm Valley Road bridge.
• Fish or paddle the Intracoastal Waterway, which runs the length of the community.

County details on the west ramp are posted on the St. Johns County Palm Valley West Boat Ramp page.

• The Palm Valley Bridge, the landmark span carrying Palm Valley Road over the Intracoastal.
• Palm Valley West Boat Ramp, the county boat ramp on the west bank.
• The History of Palm Valley historical marker, which documents the 1901 settlement, palm harvesting for Palm Sunday, and Prohibition-era palmetto-berry moonshining.
• The Intracoastal Waterway itself, which defines the community's east-west split.