Award Winning Custom Home Builder

Our History

Founded in 1976 by R.A. “Chupa” Nelson, RA Nelson is an employee-owned full-service General Contractor headquartered in Avon in Colorado’s Vail Valley with a regional office near Aspen in the Roaring Fork Valley. We offer preconstruction, construction management/general contractor services, excavation and property management services. As a local mountain contractor, we have experience in working in difficult to access areas, erecting complex structures, delivering the most refined architectural elements, and installing state-of-the-art building technology. With thirteen LEED® AP/GA on staff and eleven LEED® Certified projects, our team excels at providing creative sustainable solutions and alternative building practices and materials.

RA Nelson has a diverse portfolio of work, specializing in high-end custom homes, award-winning sustainable buildings, recreational complexes, multi-family residential projects, affordable housing neighborhoods, educational facilities, hotels, restaurants, commercial buildings, tenant finishes, and interior and exterior renovations. Born in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we have been building mountain communities for almost 50 years, including Vail, Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch, Cordillera, Aspen, Snowmass, Buttermilk, Keystone, Breckenridge, and Telluride. Our core values are: SAFETY – Protect ourselves and each other; INTEGRITY – Do what we say we will do, every single time; TEAMWORK – together we respect, trust and listen; ENJOYMENT – Be passionate and have fun with everything we do.

Community Commitment

RA Nelson supports over 150 organizations in the areas we serve and has donated over $1.5 million to local charities. We empower our employees to give back: our team logs over 1,000 volunteer hours annually, and employees are given at least 8 paid volunteer hours each year.

Colorado Mountain Bike League

RA Nelson has partnered with The Colorado High School Cycling League to sponsor their summer & fall mountain bike races, with stops in Eagle, Frisco, Leadville, Steamboat, Glenwood and Nathrop. The Colorado League promotes positive youth development through interscholastic mountain biking for high school students across Colorado. Since it’s inception, The Colorado League has grown from 200 to 1,700 participants, including 25% female participants. In 2022 they provided $54,275 in scholarships.

EagleVail Turkey Trot

RA Nelson is an annual sponsor of the EagleVail Turkey Trot, which has had over 8,000 participants and raised over $182K for YouthPower365’s PWRHRS Afterschool program. RA Nelson staff help out with event set-up and execution for the hundreds of participating racers.

Habitat for Humanity

As a local builder, we lend our expertise to Habitat for Humanity by participating in and leading build days. We sponsor events and donate appliances and materials from job sites rather than hauling them off to the dumpster.

Walking Mountains Science Center

RA Nelson partnered with Walking Mountains to build their LEED-Certified Avon Campus, contributing funding and labor hours. RA Nelson is a proud supporter of Walking Mountains programming, designed to inspire environmental stewardship and sustainability through natural science education.

Bright Future Foundation

From the renovation of their Avon offices to the construction of the new Bright House, RA Nelson supports the Bright Future Foundation mission to change lives affected by domestic violence and sexual abuse.