The first project Delbert Adams built with his business partner Doug Croker was a two-story, four-bedroom brick Georgian home on the Eastern Short. Designed by Connecticut architect Thomas A. Norton for a venture capitalist from New York, the house was filled with beautifully detailed carpentry and millwork, including oak and cherry parquet floors, mahogany doors, custom cabinets, arched frames and custom moldings throughout. Situated on the Wye River, it was adjoined by a guest house and three-car garage and overlooked a 100-foot lap pool surrounded by formal gardens. Completed in 1987, the project was later named “Best Overall Custom House,” by Custom Builder Magazine and the National Association of Home Builders.

“It was a great first home to have,” says Adams modestly. The project yielded not only an auspicious start for his partnership with Croker, but a name for it, as well. Situated on the property were two stately American holly trees, Latin name: Ilex opaca. Both men were struck by the idea of naming their firm after something of such everlasting beauty. “Part of our philosophy was that we would build for life and maintain customers forever,” explains Adams, president of ILEX Construction.

So far, so good. Since its founding 14 years ago, ILEX has become one of the region’s most renowned construction firms, nationally known for its woodworking division. Adams estimates his company has constructed or renovated more than 150 homes and buildings in Maryland and completed some 30 to 40 projects out of state. It’s won major awards from industry associations and magazines, and its local reputation is such that, to Adams’ pleasant surprise, the phrase “ILEX kitchen” occasionally appears as a selling point in residential real estate ads. High-profile commercial projects have included the swank club level and owners’ box of PSINet Stadium and the clubhouse of the Caves Valley Golf Club, as well as the renovation of the old Alex. Brown Building for Chevy Chase Bank and the meticulous restoration of the fire-damaged Maryland Club.

The ILEX headquarters, which occupy 25,000 square feet of an old foundry in the historic mill section of Baltimore, offer a sensory feast. Sawdust swirls in the air, the sweet aroma of fresh cut wood mingles with the pungent smell of stain, and a cacophony of sanders, saws and planers drowns out the constant hum of traffic on the Jones Falls Expressway just yards away. Master carpenters and their apprentices work at a dozen stations. Unfinished lumber from all over the world leans against work tables waiting to be cut and carved. Each board or piece is carefully numbered and matched to blueprints created by ILEX’s computer-aided design team, and computers track the progress of each project. There are a dozen under way at any given moment, according to Adams.

ILEX started its woodworking division in 1988 by purchasing two small existing shops. “Before then,” says Adams, the division’s COO, “we didn’t have control of the total project and timeliness.” The company builds everything from cabinets and armoires to staircases and the occasional wooden sailboat. Adams used to say “everything except bridges,” until last year, when ILEX build eight bridges for a New York couple’s estate.

Adams’ partner, Croker, CEO of both ILEX Construction and Woodworking, now lives on the Eastern Shore and oversees projects there with his daughter Talli Croker Oxnam, who is head of operations, and stepson Dirck Bartlett, a senior project manager and estimator. (Family ties are common at ILEX: Two of Adams’ brothers have been known to wield a hammer for ILEX off and on ove the years, and Dad comes East each spring to help refurbish a home sponsored by ILEX during Christmas in April, a day when groups across the country refurbish the homes of low-income elderly and physically handicapped people.)

In contrast to the noisy industrial setting back in Baltimore, ILEX’s Eastern Shore office is a white clapboard Colonial house, circa late 1800s, that sits quietly on the main street of Easton. Two large Ilex Opaca trees just happen to grow in the side yard. In May 2000, the company purchased an Easton woodworking shop with 16 craftsmen, a fitting addition to a company that built its first home nearby nearly a decade and a half ago and now complete several projects a year in the area.

The middle child of a family of nine, Adams, 44, grew up chasing hockey pucks across frozen ponds and renovating and remodeling homes for his parents’ real estate company in Cleveland. “My brothers and I would work with plumbers, carpenters and electricians to fix up [the houses], rent and maintain them.” After high school, his gift for moving the puck and passion for motivating other players took him to Babson College in Boston, where he studied business and was captain of Babson’s Division III hockey team. He came to Maryland in 1981 to work for a commercial contracting and restoration firm owned by a cousin and a few years later built log cabins.

He met Croker, who was also working in construction, in the mid-1980s, introduced by architect Phil Worrall. Both builders felt the home construction industry, even the upper end, was setting its standards too low. They formed their partnership intending to aim higher in both quality and attention to detail.

Although Babson won the national championship only after he graduated, Adams notes with a chuckle, the experience on the ice helped him build skills as a team builder and motivator that continue to serve him well today. Equally comfortable with hammer or hockey stick in hand, he is drawn to sports analogies and talk of teamwork. His favorite part of any project is “galvanizing the team up front,” he says. “It’s best for the homeowner to have the team in place early in the game. There are so many parts and pieces to orchestrate.” That includes builder, architect, designer, and subcontractors.

“Usually the client or the site has very specific criteria we need to match,” Adams continues. “We match our people and contractors and master craftsmen from across the region to that project. We have some great people who make the extra effort,” he says of the staff of 100. “They are really students of the industry, always learning more about a new method or product. We’re not out to build the same house over and over again. It’s always something new.”

Clients Tony and Lynn Deering, now on their sixth home remodeling project with ILEX, first hired the firm in 1987 to renovate the kitchen in their Baltimore County home. “We hired ILEX after bidding out the job,” Lynn explains. For the second project, a redesign of their home’s second floor, they didn’t even seek bids.

“We knew we would not be doing a construction project without ILEX,” says Lynn. “They identified potential problems or area where we could be disappointed. And when we made changes, they always came back with the impact of those changes on budget and time. They have always been available and responsive to any call. I can even ask them to do repairs that are not related to their work.”

Adams says his firm has done everything from change and light bulb to find a caterer to help a client. More involved was the custom ventilation system ILEX created so that a husband could maintain both his cigar habit and his marriage. “You can have the most beautiful home ever built, but if the process was agonizing getting there, your client will never call you back. And vice versa. Too often, everyone hates his or her builder at the end of the project. That’s just not the case with us,” says Adams, who became so close to two couples during the construction process that each named him a godfather to their children.

Interior designer Nancy Secrist appreciates the way ILEX works with design professionals. “Sometimes [when] there are questions and they’re not for sure, other contractors will just assume and not call the designer,” she says. “ILEX values architects and designers and makes sure what they want is achieved.” Architect Jeffrey Penza of Penza Associates Architects agrees: “They know when to ask me questions and when not to ask. They’re always on the lookout for a better way to do things.”

“I don’t pretend to be in the design business,” Adams responds. “We work with architects and designers who are very talented. What we bring to the table is a second opinion and a new approach to the design.”

Delbert Adams looks the part of the rugged, all-American former athlete he is. And he takes that all-American part seriously. The photos and paintings hanging on the cherry-paneled walls of his modest office include paintings of the American flag and photos of Adams with Gen. Colin Powell and former President Reagan at the annual luncheons for the National Flag Day Foundation. In 1986, Adams co-founded the Human Flag Formation at Fort McHenry as part of Baltimore’s Flay Day ceremonies. For five years, he orchestrated 3,000 to 4,000 schoolchildren with red, white and blue placards to create the Stars and Stripes. He credits his deep patriotism and devotion to the flag to his father’s service in World War II. “We live in the best country on the planet,” Adams states proudly. “My generation has a hard time understanding the struggle of previous generations. It hasn’t been that tough on us.”

Prominently featured on his bookcase is an army helmet with “SARGE” emblazoned across the front a gift from his fellow Rotary Club Board of Directors for his “Sergeant at Arms” position. For the past five years, Adams has co-chaired the club’s To Immunize Kids Everywhere (TIKE) Committee, raising approximately $150,000 to design and build an immunization van that was donated to the Baltimore City Department of Health.

Family photos of his wife, Gina, and their three children (ages 14, 10, and 3) crowd his desk. Not unexpectedly, the recently completed remodel of his own house focused on his love of family and sports: each family member got a locker, and the new basement ceiling was made high enough, 10 feet, to accommodate lacrosse throws and pitching wind-ups.

Many evenings and weekends find Adams on the playing field coaching youngsters in lacrosse, soccer or baseball for the Towson Recreation Council. One of his favorite ways to motivate the 5- to 14-year-olds on his team is to give them a talk about what it takes to be a champion and never give up. And every player goes home with a little piece of rock left over from one of ILEX’s most unusual projects: a special tribute for Cal Ripken.

About 10 days before Ripken broke the record of 2,131 consecutive games played, Adams got a call from the Orioles. His teammates wanted to commemorate the occasion with something special and suggested using granite from a Baltimore quarry for a one-of-a-kind present. ILEX whittled down a nearly 4,000-pound slab until it weighed exactly 2,131 pounds, with an inscription of the famed numerals in the fact of the rock.

Each season when Adams gives each of his players their own little chip of the cast-off rock, he tells them its story and preaches the importance of giving the best they’ve got.

Adams figures he’s got another 10 years’ worth of granite left, or at least enough to see his own children through the youth leagues. Taking another tip from the Orioles, he and Croker have begun cultivating something of a “farm system” for ILEX by developing a regional apprentice program for kids coming out of high school. “The industry is lacking in talent, and there aren’t enough young people learning the trade,” explains Adams. Ever the coach, he believes offering a solid training program is the only way to attract and keep good quality people.

“I love kids,” he says. “And I love developing someone’s potential.”