James Wrigg did not take the most direct route into homebuilding. He spent years studying theology, entered a seminary with the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, and got close enough to the priesthood to know it was not the right fit. What he brought with him when he left, a genuine interest in what people actually need and a philosophy of servant leadership, shaped the way he runs operations today.
“I really approach things saying I want to make something better for my consumer. I want to make my employees better. I want to meet them where they are and take them to where they can be.”
These days, James is the Senior Vice President of Bridge Tower Homes, a build-to-rent company that has been operating in Texas since 2019, and the driving force behind their newest brand, Westfield Homes, built-to-sell. In this conversation with Michael, he talks through both sides of that operation and a lot of the thinking behind it.
The build-to-rent model gets a proper explanation here, because it is still widely misunderstood. Bridge Tower targets what James calls the move-up renter, someone who has outgrown apartment living, has a family and maybe a dog, and wants a backyard and a garage without necessarily being ready to buy. The average resident in their communities is around 39 years old. Average tenancy runs about three and a half years, compared to roughly one and a half in a typical apartment complex. James credits a lot of that to building communities that actually feel like neighborhoods, and to how residents relate to them once they move in.
“We see in our communities, people take ownership of it in a way that’s similar to your traditional single family neighborhood. We see some of our people dress up their landscape bed in front of their house. You can tell they’re emotionally invested in this experience.”
On the investment side, James walks through how these projects actually get funded, general and limited partner equity structures, the role of institutional capital, and what it means to have your equity tied up in a stabilizing rental asset versus turning houses for immediate cash flow. The distinction matters a lot if you are a production builder thinking about adding a build-to-rent arm to your business. James is straightforward that the two models require different thinking about time, capital, and risk.
Speaking of risk, this is where the conversation gets particularly useful. James talks about what a real go/no-go process looks like at multiple stages of a project. Early on, it might be school district ratings or topography data that kills a deal before it ever gets traction. Deeper in, it is about having the discipline to walk away when a project stops making sense, and not letting sunk cost keep you attached to something that needs to be let go.
“You have got to quickly get used to killing your what you thought was going to be. You just can’t get your heart attached too quickly when it’s early in the process. You’ve got to be willing to say no, or just take it for what it is quickly. It’s not going to work, quit trying to beat your head against this wall. Don’t put it on life support, just kill it.”
There is also a genuinely instructive story about a project in Austin where James sat down with local vendors and asked them to explain how things are done differently there. That conversation ended up saving around four million dollars in dirt work.
“You have to be willing to know what you don’t know. When we started our project in Austin, I went down there and met with our vendor pool and said, guys, I don’t know how to pour slabs in Austin. What am I looking at? Explain it to me. Now, do I know how to pour slabs? Yes. Have I built hundreds and thousands of houses? Yes. But it’s approaching it with the humility of, I’ve not done it here, and I don’t know what they know about this specific location. And in that particular deal, we ended up saving ourselves about four million dollars of dirt work.”
Value engineering comes up too, and James draws a useful distinction between genuine efficiency work and simply cutting costs until a product loses its appeal. The question his team asks is whether they are wasting something somewhere, whether the design is actually serving the buyer, and where they can add durability or livability without adding expense.
Before the conversation gets to Westfield, James talks about something he learned from the Bridge Tower partners that shifted how he thinks about the business overall: a real appreciation for quantifying risk and making sure no single position has the power to bring everything down.
“No one thing should ever be in a position to sink you. You never want that type of exposure in one position. How do we build and scale a business while always protecting the heart of it?”
Westfield Homes grew out of a few converging needs. Build-to-rent production tends to be lumpy, big peaks followed by valleys, and a for-sale operation helps even out the rhythm. It also opens up land acquisition opportunities that would not otherwise make sense, because Bridge Tower can now deploy parcels in multiple ways depending on what the market supports. The capital behind Westfield comes from a joint venture with Hanin Properties, a firm out of Osaka, making Bridge Tower their first American partner in the for-sale space. Phase one at their current community puts Westfield on model row alongside Highland Homes, Perry Homes, American Legend, and Bloomfield.
Michael and James also spend time on the workforce side of the business, how James approaches developing young talent, the value of building relationships with other builders rather than treating them purely as competition, and what company culture actually looks like when leadership stays close to the team.
The episode closes on the question of attainable housing and whether a rent-to-own hybrid model is viable. James gives an honest answer about why it is financially difficult without some form of municipal support, and mentions that Bridge Tower is actively in conversations with at least one major city about exactly that kind of arrangement. There is no grand conclusion on it, just a builder who clearly wants to figure it out.
James Wrigg is the SVP of Operations for Bridge Tower Homes and Westfield Homes, with over two decades in residential construction. His background spans production homebuilding and build-to-rent, including a stretch managing a division at Perry Homes before joining Bridge Tower.
Since coming on board, he has scaled the build-to-rent platform to 400-500 homes per year, with 620 closings projected for 2027, while bringing hard cost per square foot down 28% over three years. He also led the launch of Westfield Homes, Bridge Tower’s for-sale brand, building the entire operation from the ground up including product, land strategy, sales platform, and warranty program.
His background is not what you would expect. James holds a bachelor’s degree in Theology with a minor in Philosophy and a graduate certificate in Systematic Theology. He built his first home at 18 under his uncle’s guidance, and has been working in the industry in some capacity ever since. That combination of people-focused thinking and hands-on construction experience shapes the way he leads teams and approaches the business today.
James Wrigg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-wrigg-a4632359/
Bridge Tower website: https://bridgetowergp.com/
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