Courtesy Hilltop Construction
By Paul Post
Hilltop Construction Company started out as a one man operation – Tom Albrecht Sr. and a pickup truck.
Today his son, Tom Jr.; daughter, April; and her husband, Dan Washburn, are leading the Queensbury-based firm into a second half-century of business, with thriving activity in both the residential and commercial sectors.
“We work with about eight different architects,” Albrect Jr. said. “They all tell me they have plenty of work, at least 12 months of work in front of them. That means there’s work we haven’t even touched yet on the construction side of things. So the outlook is very, very healthy.”
Hilltop is marking its 50 anniversary this year, with plans for an official celebration in August. The company is headquartered in a handsome new building at 21 Casey Road, just north of Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport.
Tom Sr. and his wife, Cindy, founders of the company retired three years ago.
Most of Hilltop’s residential construction, which accounts for about 60 percent of the firm’s business, is driven by Metro New York residents building upscale second homes in the North Country. “We’re seeing more and more people using them year-round for summer and the ski season,” Albrecht Jr. said. “They don’t live here full time, but they use their house about half the time.”
Lakefront property on Lake George, Glen Lake, Brant Lake and Schroon Lake is in especially high demand. Quite often, clients raze older structures in order to build a dream home of their own.
“Prices have almost doubled in the past five years, since COVID, when people began moving up here and realized they could work remotely,” he said. “We have a client that bought property and a house to tear down on Lake George for $2.5 million a few years ago. Six months ago, their neighbor paid $4.5 million. That’s just for the property.”
As demand has increased and availability of land has decreased, Hilltop is doing more projects on northern Lake George in places such as Huletts Landing, Gull Bay and Ticonderoga.
“Everybody’s kind of looking for that Adirondack style,” Albrecht Jr. said. “Some people still want a modern design with an Adirondack twist. Everybody’s kind of got a unique thing. It’s not like there’s an industry standard for lakefront houses, but everybody wants the Adirondack feel.”
Typically, new homes range from 2,500 to 3,500 square feet with an emphasis on energy efficiency.
“We just finished our first passive-solar house up in the woods on Brant Lake,” Albrecht Jr. said. “It’s just now getting through the final phases of passive-solar rating. There’s no propane. It’s all electric based, highly insulated.”
Soon, work is slated to begin on another passive house near Gore Mountain for clients from New Jersey. “That one will be geothermal, using the ground to heat and cool the house,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of geothermal work in the past 20 years so we’re very knowledgeable about it and can educate clients in that area.”
Hilltop’s longevity and solid reputation negate the need for marketing and advertising. “It’s really by the word-of-mouth of clientele we work for, who are telling other people about Hilltop,” Albrecht Jr. said. “This being our 50th year, it’s pretty much a track record of our history as a company. People want to hire companies that have been around for a long time.”
Both he and Washburn, his brother-in-law, are trained in all aspects of the business, but for the most part Albrecht Jr. oversees residential projects while Washburn handles commercial work.
Hilltop has done a great deal of work for Stewart’s Shops, either remodeling or building new stores at more than 100 locations for the Malta-based company.
“That has spun off into other gas stations for other clients,” Albrecht Jr. said.
One of the most recent jobs is a handsome new convenience store in Rexford, Saratoga County.
Plans are also in the works for another expansion at the Fun Spot amusement center in Queensbury, and a March groundbreaking is expected for a new Arrow Bank branch office in Ticonderoga.
“We’ve never had a slowdown,” Albrecht Jr. said.
He credits much of the firm’s success to his sister, April, who manages the office, handling a variety of duties such as payroll and billing. “If it wasn’t for her keeping us in check it would be very hard to keep this business going,” he said. “She worked under my mom (Cindy) and had a lot of grooming so she can run things very successfully.”
Like many firms, Hilltop is constantly on the lookout for good, qualified employees. This year, for the first time in three decades, it brought on five 18-year-olds recruited right out of high school.
They’re among the company’s 35 employees that keep things going smoothly, on time.
Another big challenge is the increasingly difficult process of obtaining approvals, especially in the North Country when dealing with the Adirondack Park Agency.
But Albrecht Jr. can’t help being optimistic about Hilltop’s future, based on its track record of success and demand for residential and commercial work.
“There’s definitely been an uptick in activity,” he said. “People wait for rates to hit their max. Once they start coming down, they jump into the market because they want to lock into rates. This area is very healthy.”