A Builder Who Leads From the Front

Dan Caporale is the founder and principal of Hearthstone Design Build — a licensed design-build firm based in Leesburg, Virginia.

Construction is in Dan's DNA. He grew up on Long Island, where his father brought Dan and his brothers up around the trade from an early age. The standards that come with that upbringing — do the work right, stand behind it, and never cut corners — have never left him.

Dan, a proud veteran of the United States Marine Corps, completed eight years of service as a Sergeant. The discipline, precision, and direct accountability of that service carried into everything that followed. Over the next two decades, he built and led high-performance organizations across multiple industries — founding companies, driving growth, and giving back to the veteran community he came from. That commitment led him to found Hire Our Heroes, a veteran employment nonprofit later integrated into the USO's Pathfinder program, and to establish National Hire a Veteran Day — now observed nationally every July 25th.

In 2019, Dan made a deliberate move back to his roots — joining a Leesburg-based private equity group as the lead for construction and development. Over the following years, he oversaw a portfolio that grew from multi-family and student housing into some of the most recognized hospitality and estate projects in the region: the Walsh Family Wine production facility and private event space, the award-winning Lark Brewing Co. campus in Aldie, and a growing body of estate and specialty structures across Northern Virginia. The quality of that work, and the relationships it built, became the foundation for launching Hearthstone.

Dan holds a Virginia Class A contractor's license and serves as the principal on every Hearthstone engagement — from first consultation through final punch list. Surrounded by a trusted team of designers, architects, and specialist tradespeople, Dan provides the single point of accountability that most firms can't offer: one person who owns the scope, the schedule, the budget, and the outcome from start to finish. That continuity is rare in this industry, and it is the reason Hearthstone clients know exactly who is responsible for their project at every stage.

Dan is based in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife are raising their four daughters. He is deeply rooted in the Loudoun County community and is an active advocate for responsible land development, preservation-grade building standards, and the kind of craftsmanship that outlasts the builder — and that his family will be proud of for generations.