About
The builder you'll actually be working with.
Luxterra Builders is Christian Hernandez. When you call the number on this site, that is who answers, and that is who runs your job. Here is how he got here, because you should know who you are hiring.
How it started
Christian grew up in Colombia and was the kind of child who stared at bridges. Not the view — the structure. How a thing that big stays up.
At seventeen he was working in a restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina, where he became friends with a man who owned a construction company. The friend offered him a good deal on a house. Christian applied the moment he turned eighteen and was declined — no credit, no history, nothing to lend against. He told his roommate about it instead. His roommate was approved, and they moved in together.
That could have been the end of it. Instead Christian kept turning up around the construction, watching how the house came together, and eventually asked his friend for work. He started on the electrical side, learning the trade from the inside.
Back to San Antonio, the long way round
Three or four months later he moved back to San Antonio, where his family is. He asked his mother whether she knew anyone in construction or real estate, and she introduced him to her agent.
He had no idea what a real estate agent was. Colombia doesn't have them in the way the United States does. So he did what the agent told him to do, step by step, and came out the other side with a license.
He spent the next four to five years at Keller Williams selling houses. That period matters more than it sounds. Selling houses teaches you what buyers actually notice, what they regret, and what they will pay for — and it let him save.
Learning to build, properly
In 2020 he built a duplex with friends. It went well, and it would have been easy to call himself a builder on the strength of it.
Instead, he went to another builder he knew and asked to work for free for as long as it took to learn the job properly. That turned into a year and a half, and a lot of houses.
In 2022 he built his first custom home. He earned his broker's license at twenty-four. Today he runs both a brokerage and a construction company — which is why, when someone asks him to look at a lot before they buy it, he can actually help.
What “owner-level” means
It is a phrase every builder uses, so here is the specific version: Christian manages every house as though he is the one who will live in it. Every detail, the whole way through — not a walkthrough at the end.
Practically, that means the decisions that cost money get made the expensive way when the cheap way would not survive scrutiny. At 917 Burnet, the plan was to keep the existing electrical. What was under the house said otherwise, so all of it was replaced, panels included. That is what the phrase is supposed to mean.
A family business
Luxterra is family-run and deliberately small. Christian builds; Mi Hee Yoo, his wife, handles interior design and selections. If you have walked 917 Burnet or looked at the photographs of it, her work is the reason the finishes hold together the way they do.
Two names on every house is the simplest reason the standard doesn't slip. There is no layer of company sitting between you and the people accountable for the work.
What we're built on
We're a Christian family, and we run the business that way. The part of that which should matter to you is conduct rather than language: doing the work properly in the places nobody will ever check, pricing something before we do it rather than after, and telling you the truth when the truth is inconvenient.
The electrical at 917 Burnet is the version of that you can actually inspect. We planned to keep it, the plan would have been cheaper, and we replaced all of it because what was under the house wasn't something we were willing to leave for an owner to find later.
We build for anyone who wants a house built properly. That has never been a condition of working with us and never will be.
The name
Lux for luxury. Terra for land. The aim is custom homes with real quality that are still standing, and still good, a long time from now.
What we build — and don't
Custom homes, ADUs and guest suites, duplexes and small multifamily, commercial build-outs, and industrial, warehouse and lab space.
We don't take entry-level or spec-grade work. It is not a judgement about those houses; it is that our process — engineering the foundation properly, replacing what should be replaced, finishing to a standard you would want in your own home — does not fit that budget, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
We also don't take routine remodels — a kitchen refresh, a bathroom swap, a list of small jobs. We will take the right renovation: a house worth saving, taken far enough back that it comes out genuinely right. 917 Burnet is what the right one looks like. If you're not sure which yours is, ask — we'll tell you honestly, including when the answer is that you want a different contractor.
The details
- Founded
- Luxterra Builders, San Antonio
- First custom home
- 2022
- Insurance
- $1,000,000 general liability
- Also
- Licensed Texas real estate broker
- Service area
- San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country
- Model home
- 917 Burnet Street — visits by appointment
Come and see the work
The fastest way to judge a builder is to stand in something they finished. Our model home is open by appointment, and you will be shown around by the person who built it.