Meet Chris O’Dell: Building Contractor
Chris O’Dell is a legend in the Staples soccer community: longtime freshman coach, former Wrecker captain, state champion team defender.
But he’s equally well known — and respected — as a builder and renovator of high-quality, high-efficiency custom homes. His O Living Experience is a full-service residential design-build company serving Westport and neighboring communities.
Recently, Chris combined soccer and business. He’s renovated the historic home bought by Kyle Martino ’99 — former Gatorade High School National Player of the Year, MLS Rookie of the Year and national team player, currently an NBC Sports analyst for EPL matches — and Kyle’s wife, Eva Amurri.
Eva is a lifestyle blogger. On Friday, she posted this story about her renovation on her blog, “Happily Eva After.” She wrote:
“I would say that the contractor-client relationship is one that can go south pretty fast– and so many people have horror stories! Kyle and myself included. When we were living in Los Angeles, we once had a contractor disappear mid-job when we were having a window replaced, literally leaving us with a hole in the side of our house that we had to tarp off. It’s only now, two homes later, getting to the point where I can laugh THAT one off. Yikes. Since renovating our historic, Westport home with O’Living Experience has been such a great experience I thought it would be a nice opportunity to give them a shoutout…but also to put Chris O’Dell to work answering some of your questions. LOL.
“Chris grew up in Westport and started his company in 2013, and it’s made a name for itself pretty quickly. He really knows the area, and the best engineers and craftsman around here, and his clients definitely reap the benefits. We’ve been renovating with them since December 2018, and I’ve found the transparency in their process to be very refreshing, and the work to be extremely high quality. I also just have to toot my own horn for a second and tell you (if you know him personally, then you already know) that to get Chris O’Dell to pose for a photo of any kind is no small feat. I somehow managed that for the purposes of this blog post, so clearly he doesn’t hate me either. Ha!”
Eva also asked Chris a series of questions: What’s the best way to find a trustworthy contractor? Should I hire a contractor, architect or designer first? How do you keep your projects on track? For the answers to these and other questions, click here.
Chris O’Dell (Photo courtesy of Eva Amurri’s blog, “Happily Eva After”)
