About St. Johns Outdoors
A family company in Jacksonville, formed in 2021 — pavers, hardscapes and outdoor living built the way we would build our own.
A family business, started by someone who grew up in it
St. Johns Outdoors was formed in 2021 by Adam Brown. Before that he spent roughly ten years building aluminum structures and outdoor living spaces in Florida, until the 2008 housing crash took that work away, and then fourteen years in medical sales. He came back to the trade a few years ago — less a change of direction than a return to it. His father was a general contractor, so job sites are simply what he grew up around.
The family part is not decoration. Adam's sons Dylan and Logan both work in the business, and office manager Ashley Mercado — six years in the construction industry — is usually the person keeping a project moving between the estimate and the install. It is a small company on purpose: the people who answer the phone are the people you keep dealing with, and Craftsmen of Character is the standard the family holds them to.
We work from a staffed office at 4949 Sunbeam Rd #2 in Jacksonville, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Everything we build sits within about an hour of here.
Six things you can hold us to
Anything a company says about itself is either true on an ordinary Tuesday or it is decoration. So here is the concrete version — six things you can hold us to, none of which require you to take our word for anything.
A person answers
Call weekdays 9am to 5pm and someone here picks up — not a call center and not a voicemail box. Your project is logged the same day, and we get back to emails quickly.
We come and look
Estimates happen on your property, in person. We tried quoting remotely and it did not stick: you cannot read a grade, a drainage path or what is under an existing surface from a satellite photo.
The quote is in writing
Promptly after that visit you have a written quote — scope and materials spelled out. Nothing that matters gets agreed verbally on a tailgate.
The real timeline, bad news included
Engineering comes first, then the permit goes in. St. Johns County moves at a steady pace; Duval can be quick or take a long time. You hear that before you sign, not after.
No invented urgency
No countdown offers, no deadline we made up, and no price inflated so it can be discounted. Military and first responder discounts available.
One company answerable
Paving, hardscapes, kitchens, fire features, lighting, screens and pergolas are quoted, sequenced and managed as one project — so there is one number to call and nobody to point at.
The people you will actually deal with
Jeff Ballou is our chief operating officer and runs the business day to day — if you have a question about a schedule, a scope or a decision, it reaches him. Denise Ericson is our director of administration and Ashley Mercado manages the office, between them keeping the paperwork, permits and calendars honest. Sam Durham handles sales, which here means going out, measuring, and coming back with a number in writing rather than a pitch.
The planting and design side is led by Bruno Adaro, our Director of Hardscapes. Bruno is a certified landscape designer and a Florida-Friendly Landscaping Certified Professional, which is the reason we will take on a whole-property design rather than treating planting as something that gets sprinkled around the hardscape at the end.
Behind them is the crew that shows up: Bryce Donaldson, Ty Woodard, Aaron Smith, Justin Seaman, Anthony Gaba and Pete Da Silva. We choose people for character first and teach the trade second, because the trade can be taught.
The parts we do not dress up
There are no prices on this website. Not a range, not a “starting at”, not a calculator. A driveway, a patio and a pool deck of the same square footage can be three very different jobs once you account for what is underneath, how the ground falls and what material sits on top — so any number we published would be a number we would later have to walk back. We measure it, then we quote it.
We will also tell you where our experience runs thin. We build within roughly an hour's drive of Jacksonville — about sixty miles — and we are more use to you in the middle of that map than at the edge of it. Palm Coast is the southern edge, and we have done little enough there to have no honest read to give you. Rather than invent one, we would rather say so before you commit to anything, and tell you what we know and what we do not.
Permits belong to the county and HOA approval belongs to your board. We prepare the HOA submission package for you, but the homeowner sends it in, because that is who boards deal with, and the timing after that depends on when your board next meets. We do not control either calendar, and we would rather say so at the estimate than let a date slip and explain it later.
We have no awards to show you. We have a 5.0 rating on Google, a license, and work you can go and look at.
In the community
We hold two seats in our local BNI chapter and are members of the Northeast Florida Builders Association. Much of the team attends Church of Eleven22.
Where we work
Roughly an hour from the office, which in practice means Jacksonville and St. Johns County first, north to Fernandina Beach, south to Palm Coast and no further, and west through Orange Park, Fleming Island, Green Cove Springs and Middleburg. Ponte Vedra, Nocatee, Julington Creek, Shearwater, Durbin Crossing and eTown are all well inside it.
We keep that radius honest for the same reason we keep the timelines honest: a crew that is three hours from the office is a crew that cannot come back quickly when something needs attention.
Meet us in your backyard
Work With People Who Do What They Say
Tell us what you are thinking about building. We come out and look at it in person, and your written quote follows promptly after the visit.