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Juan Fernandez, founder of CVF Homes, trained as an engineer before stumbling into homebuilding. He became a green-energy pioneer and is still going strong after two decades.<\/p>\n
Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
Juan Fernandez came to San Antonio from Mexico City at the turn of the century, intending to stay just long enough to settle some tax issues involving his father’s land. More than two decades later, he and his family remain, in part because they fell in love with the city and in part because he stumbled into a career as one of the city’s leading builders of energy-efficient homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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His timing couldn’t have been better.<\/p>\n
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This is one in a series of profiles the San Antonio Express-News will publish over the course of 2026 recognizing emerging leaders in business, science, politics, education, the arts and other fields.<\/p>\n
To learn more about the series and to nominate people you think should be considered for profiles, go to\u00a0Expressnews.com\/20for26<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can read previous stories in the series\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n With CPS Energy and the San Antonio Water System pursuing rate <\/a>increases\u00a0and people paying more for gasoline, groceries, health care and other essentials, Fernandez expects more buyers to recognize the value of the energy-saving features his company, CVF Homes<\/a>, builds into every house.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, it\u2019s a\u00a0no-brainer,\u201d said Fernandez, 53, who founded CVF \u2014 for\u00a0Casas Verdes Fernandez \u2014 in 2005. \u201cThese pressures, I mean, they\u2019re not going away. I think the opposite, in fact. The more expensive water gets, the more expensive electricity gets, the more expensive everything gets, the more people are going to understand that the features we put into these homes will eventually pay for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the 50 homes\u00a0CVF has built over the past two decades address this new reality with such energy-saving features as foam insulation, heat-pump water heaters, built-in\u00a0EV chargers, variable-speed air conditioners, windows with low-emissivity (Low-E) glass coatings that reduce heat transfer, and smart water pumps that learn homeowners\u2019 habits so they can send hot water to the shower in advance, reducing water waste.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The company’s footprint is tiny compared with that of national home builders such as Lennar and KB Home, but its impact in San Antonio has been anything but negligible. CVF was ahead of the curve in bringing energy-saving features to residential construction in the city and in building homes in empty lots and other gaps in the urban fabric, an approach known as infill development.<\/p>\n \u201cJuan is a visionary who is passionate about the community and has a knack for building homes that help improve people\u2019s lives,\u201d said Anita\u00a0Ledbetter, executive director of Build San Antonio Green, a nonprofit that certifies environmentally friendly homes and buildings. “While he is one of the smaller builders we work with, he was one of the very first adopters of many of these technologies.”<\/p>\n CVF was the first builder working with Build San Antonio Green to construct a certified net zero residential home<\/a> in San Antonio, meaning it produces as much renewable energy as it consumes. The company also helped pioneer the RioT system,<\/a> which uses smart technology to monitor a home’s energy usage, indoor air quality and how hard its heating and cooling system must work to circulate air.<\/p>\n “Juan’s homes are, on average, about 33% more energy efficient than a brand new home built to code, according to the Home Energy Rating System,”\u00a0Ledbetter said, referring to the nationally recognized scoring system<\/a> used to measure a home’s energy efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Since 2012, every\u00a0CVF house has received certification from Build San Antonio Green. Many have also been certified by the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Energy Star program and the Department of Energy\u2019s Zero Energy Ready Home program, now known as Efficient New Homes.<\/p>\n Green Heights,\u00a0a CVF development of 12 homes\u00a0in Alamo Heights, won a 2018 award for best infill development from Build San Antonio Green and a 2019 Housing Innovation Award from the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.<\/p>\n Fernandez estimates his homes cost 5% to 6% more than conventionally built houses \u2014 even more if purchasers opt for\u00a0solar panels and a backup battery. Based on the nationwide average sales price of $475,000 for a new single-family home in June, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, that premium would amount to about $24,000 to $29,000.<\/p>\n But focusing on the upfront cost, he insists, is short-term thinking: He says homeowners can recover the additional cost in three to eight years, depending on the size of the house and whether it has solar panels and a battery.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n VICTORIA COMMONS: Peek inside a new energy-efficient home at San Antonio<\/a><\/p>\n Jeanna Easley lived in one of CVF’s three-bedroom, 2\u00bd-bathroom houses in Green Heights for four years, until her job with Marathon Petroleum\u00a0Corp. sent her to Houston in 2024.<\/p>\n With the petroleum industry under pressure to become greener,\u00a0Easley said, she viewed the house as a statement that she was doing her part.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved that house,\u201d she said recently. \u201cMy (CPS Energy) bills were low, only about $100 a month, and I never had any temperature issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n When it came time to sell the 2,400-square foot home, she quickly got an offer for $650,000, about $100,000 more than she\u2019d paid.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was just a great allure to the house,\u201d she said, citing its vaulted ceiling, ground-floor primary bedroom, outdoor patio and sealed concrete floors.<\/p>\n She also lauded Fernandez for his follow-through after she bought the house in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of builders disappear once you sign the papers,\u201d she said. \u201cBut Juan was always super helpful and accessible. He was in the neighborhood all the time, asking, \u2018Do you need anything?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Mexico City to San Antonio<\/p>\n Building houses was not part of Fernandez\u2019s original life plan.<\/p>\n He grew up on his grandfather\u2019s dairy farm in\u00a0Ixtapaluca, Mexico, about an hour\u2019s drive east of Mexico City.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father and uncles ran the farm, but I soon realized I had no interest in the dairy business,\u201d he said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Juan Fernandez, founder of CVF Homes, trained as an engineer before stumbling into homebuilding. He became a green-energy pioneer and is still going strong after two decades.<\/p>\n Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n So he left home to study mechanical engineering at\u00a0Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey,<\/a> a private research university commonly known as Tec de Monterrey.<\/p>\n After graduating, he moved to Mexico City, where he worked as an engineer at one of the country\u2019s largest insurance companies and, later, bought the city\u2019s first franchise of the\u00a0Farmacias del Ahorro<\/a> drugstore chain.<\/p>\n This was in 1999 and, although the shop was located near a busy subway station, competition from other drugstores was fierce, making it hard for him to make ends meet. He eventually sold the store back to the company, then convinced his dad to let him go to San Antonio to oversee some land his father and a friend had invested in on the city\u2019s South Side.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n He quickly discovered the friend hadn\u2019t been paying property taxes and that there was a lien on the land. Fernandez offered to move to San Antonio for a year, sell the land and settle the debt.<\/p>\n \u201cTwenty-three years later, married and with three kids, I\u2019m still here,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He and his wife, artist and writer Regina\u00a0Moya<\/a>, quickly fell in love with San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe city represented an opportunity,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a growing city with a dynamic economy. Beyond that, it\u2019s a very welcoming place. We have lots of friends who are originally from Mexico, so that\u2019s very welcoming, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Coming from the urban sprawl of Mexico City, they were delighted to occasionally see deer running through their North Side yard.<\/p>\n Not long after arriving, Fernandez took some of the money from the drugstore sale and bought a small house in the\u00a0Lavaca neighborhood south of downtown to renovate and sell.\u00a0<\/p>\n GREENEST IN S.A.: Dignowity Hill home has all the energy-saving bells and whistles<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s funny, because I knew nothing about construction,\u201d he said. \u201cI relied on people I met to teach me.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The refurbished house sold quickly and for a profit. So over the next few years, he renovated and sold several more, confining himself mostly to the\u00a0Lavaca, King William and Lone Star neighborhoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d completely gut the houses, install new plumbing, new wiring, everything,\u201d he said. \u201cWe fixed them up so they were really cool. I\u2019d never considered getting into construction but, by trial and error, I found that I liked it and was good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n Although his lack of a track record initially made things difficult, Fernandez quickly built connections in the business community. San Antonio\u2019s close ties to Mexico helped ease his transition.<\/p>\n \u201cMy accent wasn\u2019t as foreign here as it might have been somewhere else in the country,\u201d he said. \u201cSan Antonio is a very bicultural city so that helped in a big way.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Building green<\/p>\n Eventually, Fernandez bought a house on a lot large enough to subdivide, so he decided to build his first completely new property.<\/p>\n Not that he had any experience with this type of building. Fortunately, he had neighbors who did.<\/p>\n \u201cI was leasing a tiny office on Broadway, next to Build San Antonio Green,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen they told me what they did, how they promoted green building, I said, \u2018This completely makes sense.\u2019 After that, I was all in and decided to make the house as eco-friendly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Ledbetter has since worked with Fernandez on many other projects, watching him develop his expertise while also promoting green building to the broader home building community.<\/p>\n “He’s always been willing to share his knowledge with others,” she said.<\/p>\n She recalls a house CVF was renovating during a Build San Antonio\u00a0Green\u00a0home tour in Lavaca several years ago. Another builder working down the street kept returning to Fernandez\u2019s job site to figure out what he was doing. Fernandez eventually explained his methods to the builder.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ended up certifying that builder’s house, too,\u201d Ledbetter said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Real estate agent Craig Browning, who has helped sell several CVF projects, says Fernandez is ahead of the curve when it comes to building energy-efficient homes in San Antonio.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he does is more common in cities like Austin, but I love that he\u2019s taking that approach to San Antonio,\u201d said Browning, who has been an agent with the Phyllis Browning Company for 16 years. \u201cBuyers increasingly want to know about heating and cooling costs, water usage and the like. Juan\u2019s homes address those concerns perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n Browning points to Fernandez’s use of heat pump water heaters as an example of this forward thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n This type of water heater acts like an air conditioner in reverse, pulling heat from the surrounding air and transferring it to the water in a reservoir, saving up to 60% on energy bills.<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cTankless is good,\u201d Browning said, \u201cbut Juan stepped up to the next, better technology, the heat pump.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike large-scale homebuilders such as Lennar, which reported\u00a0delivering more than 82,000 homes nationwide in 2025,<\/a> CVF is a small operation with three full-time employees.\u00a0It builds three to 10 homes a year, depending on the state of the economy, and most of them are built on vacant or underutilized lots.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n