Kendall Milagro embodies the true spirit of family togetherness. With over two decades of experience, the boutique home-building company is a testament to the passion and dedication of its founders.
Tom Kendall and Alice Rodriguez, the husband-and-wife co-founders and co-owners, along with their daughter, Juliana Rodriguez Ziv, the designer, and Kendall’s brother-in-law, Israel Hernandez, the lead general contractor, form a team that is deeply committed to their craft. Their love for what they do is evident in every home they build.
Kendall and Rodriguez both had long and successful careers at J.P. Morgan, but upon retirement, they found they missed working. “Having made loans to people for over 20 years, I wanted to get on the other side of the table and do something tangible,” Kendall said.
With a brother-in-law already experienced in the building industry, Kendall and Rodriguez found it relatively easy to establish the construction side of the business. Leveraging their business acumen from their successful careers at J.P. Morgan, they founded Kendall Milagro in 2001 with a straightforward idea: to build homes they would want to live in.
This commitment to quality is evident in their personal experience, having lived in three of the homes they’ve built. They never cut corners, they use the best quality appliances, and they take pride in the craftsmanship, quality, and detail of every home, reassuring potential clients of the value they will receive.
The company also gives great consideration to location. Because every neighborhood is unique, every home they build is a reflection of the local character. Whether they are working in Lakewood or Little Forest Hills, each home is designed to seamlessly blend in with the look and feel of the neighborhood.
Daughter Juliana Rodriguez Ziv joined the family business in 2019 when she began assisting her parents with a home they were building for themselves. She’d been working for Arteriors and was immersed in design, so she thought it would be fun to help her parents in her spare time. Then, the pandemic hit, and she was laid off.
“I thought, I’m already doing this; I have an eye for it, so I came on board in an official capacity,” Ziv said. She also started her own business — JRZ Design and Consulting — because, as a boutique firm, Kendall Milagro typically builds only one or two homes a year.
But don’t think Ziv is in heels designing behind a desk all day. “I’m on the construction sites, learning about everything to integrate the design with the build better,” she said. “I envision what type of family will live in each house and the memories they will make there, so I’m very intentional about the choices I make. While we strive to incorporate emerging design trends, we also strike a balance with elements that have lasting appeal. I like to add pops of personality to spaces like the powder room, the kids’ bathrooms, or select items in the kitchen. You try to make the design work for most people but still have some personality. You are essentially getting a custom-spec home from us.”
We take pride in what we build. I’m still as excited about it as I was when we started.
Tom Kendall
Although custom spec homes may seem like a contradiction, it’s a very good description of what makes Kendall Milagro different. When you are essentially building a custom home for yourself, it will be unique, and although it’s speculative, what they’ve been doing for over 20 years has been working beautifully!
Monument Realty’s Karen Stevenson has this beautiful Kendall Milagro home we’ve featured above at 8915 Forest Hills Blvd. in Dallas available for $1.485 million.
