“Kirk” is Scots English for church, originally from the Norse. “Croft” is Scots English for farm, originally from the West Germanic. Although the sun may be setting on the Modern Farmhouse aesthetic, Kirk + Croft aims to maintain the sensibilities of the Scottish Highlands with the elevated design of Scandinavia: homes that fit in their settings and bring the calm and quiet of a remote and rugged landscape to the hustle and bustle of a large American city.
Kirk + Croft is the fulfillment of dreams doused with skepticism. It’s the realization that a lifetime of doodling in the margins could be a fulfilling vocation. And it’s a commitment to filling the city we love with beautiful and usable spaces.
Kirk & Croft currently does most of their work in Kirkwood, Oakhurst, and Morningside.
Who We Are
David Bell has been designing homes in his head since he was old enough to hold a pencil. He spent his teens and twenties swinging hammers on Habitat for Humanity builds through Alabama churches where he served as a youth minister, then went on to earn a Master’s in Theology from Princeton and a Doctorate in Religious Studies from Emory…which is an unusual path to homebuilding, but it all came together with the launch of Kirk & Croft.
After years of teaching, David began scratching the homebuilding itch again around 2016. He first renovated his Kirkwood home room by room, with heated bathroom floors, a deck, and a custom treehouse his kids still talk about. When he sold it, the value of craftsmanship & custom touches spoke for itself: their house went for $100,000 more than a comparable house one block away. David went on to build his family’s current home from the ground up, including a triple bunk reading nook custom-made for three kids and the rotating cast of cousins that comes with a big family. Since then, he and Adam have gone on to build several homes and help families realize their visions with custom renovations. He hasn’t turned back.
Adam Handler handles the numbers, which sounds less exciting than it is. Without his financial discipline, there’s no David building beautiful things. A Harvard-trained public policy wonk and Head of Sustainability at Acuity Brands, Adam brings a sustainability rigor to Kirk + Croft that goes beyond aesthetics: he’s the one asking hard questions about carbon footprint when David’s busy thinking about countertops.
KIRK & CROFT 