Chevy Chase is a mature suburb, which means that homebuyers won’t find a lot of new construction on the market. What new construction they do find will usually be the work of builders like Dave Kelly. (That’s Dave on a Bethesda construction site where his company is building a new home that will replace an existing 1950s-era structure.)

The Kelly Co. specializes in filling niches in the real estate market. A niche might be a home built in the 1920s with 1,500 square feet of space. Buyers in Chevy Chase generally want more space. Kelly bids on homes like that when they come on the market. Sometimes, if his bid is successful, he will tear the old house down and build a new, bigger home on the lot. Sometimes he will add to the existing house. Kelly will start such a project on Georgia Street in Chevy Chase in the next few weeks. He plans to deepen the basement; he’ll expand and modernize the existing space, adding a little less than 50 percent to the living area.

Once in a while, an undeveloped lot becomes available for building. Kelly built a custom house with a Georgian design on a lot at One E. Newlands Street a few years ago. The land had some issues; digging the foundation, the building crew struck ground water just three feet below the surface. Kelly engineered a custom drainage system for the house that enabled construction to go forward. (The house is pictured above.)

Kelly was born in Bethesda, graduated from Walt Whitman High School, and lives now in Kenwood. He knows how the preferences of homeowners have evolved and he caters to those preferences. A modern first-floor plan, he says, deemphasizes the living room that was once the largest room in the house. Instead, that space now goes to a combined kitchen and family area, probably with a fireplace.

“People want four bedrooms on the second floor with a master suite, large closets, and big, luxurious bathrooms,” he said. “It’s a bonus if you can get a laundry space on the second floor. They’ll take less yard space if it means having more living space and a shorter commute.”

And that’s what they get from the Kelly Co.