Hawlie Ohe

Highlights

• Custom Home Builds
• Full-Scope Renovations
• Interior Design
• Furnishing & Styling

White Sands Design | Build creates custom luxury homes and interiors, offering everything from ground-up builds and full remodels to standalone interior design and furnishing. Led by Hawlie Ohe and Brett Malkin since 2014, the firm offers a fully in-house design-build model, giving clients one process, one unified vision and one integrated team from foundation to finish.

Hawlie previously worked in journalism and television before her work at a lifestyle blog ignited her passion for design. She went back to school at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising before opening White Sands Design | Build. Twelve years later, she’s raising her two sons in the South Bay and designing homes for the community she loves.

How does holistic practice play into your business model?

For us, holistic means starting from the dirt and staying with a client through the last piece of furniture—construction and design as one integrated process. It also refers to a harmony between form and function. Any material can be made to look beautiful, but will it actually endure a busy life? In my work, functionality always comes first, and then I dress it up.

When people tell the story of your business years from now, what do you hope they’ll say?

I love helping clients create their personal sanctuary—the place where they’ll wake up, raise their families and make their most important memories. Years from now, I want to know that my clients have continued to experience joy in their homes and they’ve felt nurtured and enriched by every day they spent there, whether in solitude or the company of loved ones.

What can we each do to support other women in business?

I think women in business should compare notes, share our stories and work toward common practices. We all have the same pain points, and we have so much to learn from each other. The South Bay is a small, tightly connected community, and the more we share wisdom instead of just cheering each other on from a distance, the faster we all grow.

What keeps you going on difficult days?

I keep my eyes on what we’re building. The sense of home we cultivate for clients is always worth it in the end, and knowing that makes the hard days feel more manageable. I also lean in to my routines: healthy food, exercise, time with my family.

In what ways do you stand out in your market?

Rather than impose our aesthetic onto clients, we work more like therapists. We extrapolate who someone is and what they actually need, and then use our training and resources to help them realize their vision. Our team is integrated enough to take on every element and make the whole process seamless. I don’t know of another design-build team that brings together such a high-end, bespoke product and the efficiency of a single team.

What belief have you completely changed your mind about?

When I was starting out, I used to think more was always better: more projects, more scale, more growth. But now, especially as my kids grow older, I want the opposite: fewer projects that I can focus on with thoughtfulness and intention. What I want now is a business that provides for my family and still lets me be present for them so I can live the kind of life I’m helping my clients realize.

What does it feel like to build homes in the community where you’re raising your kids?

These aren’t just abstract projects; they’re places where people I know, or who I will come to know, will spend their most important years. Some of them are on streets that I walk on every day with my kids. That degree of closeness is something I carry into every decision we make, from the materials we use to the ways we communicate. It’s why the work we do means as much to us as it does to the people we do it for.

Tell us about your team.

This is a male-dominated industry, but women create the soul of a home. That’s why White Sands features female voices at the center of our design and build teams. Nicole, my design partner of seven years, and Heather Joe, our project manager, are the core of what we do. Women are master organizers and leaders; they bring thoughtfulness to the communication and flow.

Photographed by Lauren Taylor