Serafin Alfarela was still a teenager when he first understood what it meant to build something that lasted. After school and on weekends, he would head out to work, helping his father on homes he was building, the elder Alfarela teaching his son the trade one nail, one wall, one finishing detail at a time. That early apprenticeship planted a seed that would grow into a 25-year career and a company known across Edmonton and surrounding areas for its custom estate homes.
“It was basically just a love for building homes,” Alfarela says of those early days. “It was just a natural progression.”
Before he ever built a house under his own name, Alfarela started small, launching a landscaping and excavation company. It was practical experience that shaped how he would eventually run his business. Today, landscaping remains woven into the fabric of Marco Antonio Homes, the company he founded and named after his son.
“We landscape all of the homes we build,” he says. “We are an estate builder. This usually entails a large landscaping project as well.”
That full-service approach – pairing the home itself with the outdoor space around it – became one of the traits that set Marco Antonio Homes apart in a competitive industry. However, for Alfarela, growth was never about doing more. It was about doing it well.
“Along the way we’ve had many opportunities to get into a little bit more volume,” he says. He’s been courted by large developers hoping to bring him into bigger subdivisions and production-style builds. Timing has not yet worked out as of yet, but he is open to future possibilities. “Basically, name recognition is the thing I’m most proud of,” he adds.
That reputation has earned Marco Antonio Homes some notable recognition over the years. The company was runner up for Estate Home of the Year, a milestone Alfarela still speaks about with pride. The company also built a show home in Windermere Ridge (a rare feat for a property valued above $2 million) which ran from 2012 to 2015 and supported the Stollery Children’s Hospital through fundraising.
“I’m still hands on,” he says.” I have a site superintendent, but I still go and look at everything that’s done prior to being covered up.” For buyers, that means knowing the owner had eyes on every stage of construction from start to finish, something Alfarela believes gets lost when a company scales beyond a certain size.
That difference shows up in the details clients ask for. Over 25 years, Alfarela and his team have built backyard oases complete with swimming pools, home theatres, golf simulator rooms, indoor wet saunas and speakeasies tucked behind unassuming entries. Some clients want a dedicated woodworking shop in the garage. Others want a wine cellar. Because the company only takes on four or five projects at a time, Alfarela is careful not to name specific builds or clients, protecting the privacy his buyers value.
That care extends into every client relationship, which Alfarela considers the most rewarding part of the job.
“The most rewarding thing for me is gaining the client’s trust over the months of meetings, negotiating, planning and design,” he says. “Then seeing their response when they’re satisfied and happy with exactly what you provided.” Building a custom estate home is a significant financial and emotional investment, he notes, and earning that level of trust from someone who started as a stranger is not something he takes lightly.
Honesty, he says, is what keeps clients coming back, some for a second build.
“We pride ourselves in honesty and integrity,” Alfarela says. “There are no surprises throughout the build.” He’s candid with clients from the outset about total costs, including landscaping, so a $2 million home doesn’t come with a quarter-million-dollar surprise once the yard work begins. “They get all the information up front to make a better decision.”
Like many builders across the province, Alfarela’s biggest challenge these days isn’t finding clients. It’s finding land. Since the pandemic, property prices have climbed quickly, faster than many buyers can mentally adjust to, while developers haven’t kept pace with lot production.
“There’s less land, less lots or product out there to sell, so its volume versus demand, and the prices are increasing dramatically,” he says. “The biggest challenge is finding available properties to build on.”
Despite those pressures, Marco Antonio Homes remains a small, family-run operation by design. Alfarela’s wife, Loressa, has worked for the company since 2001 and remains dedicated to accounting and design work. His son, Marco, has worked under advisement for many years, while his daughters, Julia and Jenna, are weighing their options, with the eldest considering a master’s degree and the youngest achieving her bachelors.
“My succession plan is to have my kids join at some point if they wish,” Alfarela says.
For now, his plan for the next five years is simple: keep building.
Twenty-five years after those early days working alongside his father, Alfarela is quick to share credit for the company’s longevity, thanking his family, his past and present clients and the tradespeople and contractors who’ve stood by the business through the years.
As Marco Antonio Homes enters its next chapter, the formula that built its reputation isn’t changing: a hands-on founder, honest communication and homes built exactly as promised.