Kelsey Hamilton

The love of home design and construction started young for Delaware native Kelsey Hamilton. As the daughter of Patty McDaniel, Founder of Boardwalk Builders, she doesn’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t surrounded by blueprints, client calls, and building materials. To this day, the smell of lumber at a framing walkthrough still takes her back to childhood. 

After graduating from Cape Henlopen High School, Kelsey earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Policy from Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. During her time in college, her love of home renovation and environmental protection collided when she worked as a summer intern for Boardwalk Builders, developing a recycling program for construction and demolition waste for the company.

Following her time in Kentucky, Kelsey worked for years in the equine industry, learning the ins and outs of sales on a different scale. While she dreamed of moving to DC and building a life in the big city, she missed the call of the shore. She returned home to work at Boardwalk Builders while furthering her education remotely at the former Green Mountain College in Vermont. Once she returned to the shores of Lewes Beach, Kelsey knew that she wasn’t meant to be anywhere else.

After earning her Master's Degree in Sustainable Food Systems, she decided to combine her education and work experience with her love of the local area by moving into a Project Development role to help more people create their dream homes in the towns she grew up in.

Through her work, she has created a number of connections, old and new, and bonds with local community members and loves that she gets to work with the people she loves each and every day. In 2023, she and her cousin, Cassidy McDaniel, seized the opportunity to continue the family’s deep legacy here in Sussex County by becoming co-owners of Boardwalk Builders. 

When she isn’t working, Kelsey spends time with her long-term boyfriend, Paul, and their Border Collie pup, Kiwi. Occasionally, you can still find her tending to horses and taking advantage of all of the natural landscapes that Sussex County has to offer.