Whole-home remodels on the isles.

Las Olas Isles came out of a dredge in the 1920s, when Fort Lauderdale decided it wanted to be the Venice of America and cut finger islands into the mangrove. Almost none of the original bungalows survive. What stands today on Nurmi Isles, Hendricks Isle, Isle of Venice and Seven Isles is a mix: 1950s and 1960s waterfront ranches, Mediterranean Revival rebuilds, Key West-style two-stories, and glass-and-limestone contemporaries from the last fifteen years. Whole-home remodeling here usually means gutting a mid-century house down to its block shell and rebuilding around the water view.

Fort Lauderdale Development Services handles the permit, and since the city went paperless, submittals go up through LauderBuild rather than across a counter. Broward adds a layer above the city: the county Board of Rules and Appeals publishes the Broward amendments to the Florida Building Code, certifies the building officials and inspectors who will review your job, and issues the formal interpretations that settle arguments. Broward sits in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, so every window, door and skylight needs product approval valid for the HVHZ. On these isles, FEMA flood rules and the fifty percent substantial-improvement threshold shape how far a gut can go.

The crew doing it has been building in South Florida for more than twenty years, with 150-plus remodels and additions delivered, all of them permitted and inspected. On a Las Olas isle that experience shows up as logistics: one lane in, one lane out, neighbors close enough to hear the saw, and a dock that may be the only sane way to land material. We scope the whole job in writing before demolition, keep a supervisor on site every working day, protect what stays, and hand you one accountable team from estimate through warranty.