Bill Slocum and his wife Marilyn, fitted with tool belts, spent long weekends during 2004 building their North Captiva Island home. You can see the care they took in building starting with the foundation, beams carefully fit atop wood pilings 12 feet in the air. Inside, fluted casings surround windows and doors, miters in the crown molding fit perfectly and built-in cabinets have been handcrafted. A claw footed bathtub sits in the guest bathroom, restored, but chipped in transit. They left the chip to fit in with the cottage design.

   From concept to completion, every detail of construction was scrutinized.

   A graduate of Colgate University, Bill has worked in various areas of the building trades all of his life. He owned a cabinet shop in Vermont and worked in the solar energy field in the 70s & 80s.

   Summers spent on the seashore in Rhode Island, a lifetime of boating and fishing, living in the Green Mountains of Vermont have all given Bill a special appreciation and respect for the balance of nature and a deep insight into the responsibility we all have in protecting it.

   From its inception, Bill Slocum Residential Builders has worked in the upper scale housing market in coastal Sarasota County, expanding their service area to North Captiva Island in the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie. Many of the original sub-contractors and managers are still in place as a result of their fine work and attention to detail. Because of the quality of workmanship and customer satisfaction, the business continues to expand at a time when housing starts are depressed. Crews are at work in both Sarasota County and North Captiva Island--where the focus is on the cottage concept, 

  Marilyn Slocum, a free lance graphic designer and photographer and a graduate of the Ringling School of Art and Design, leads the company in marketing.