Some have referenced
this thread for a discussion on what constitutes "high-end" but I think there is an easier starting place for building a list of houses.
In 2005 Audemars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux, and Richemont founded the non-profit Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie which is based in Geneva and is essentially a trade group for haute horlogerie, obviously dominated by Richemont, but still interesting.
The current members (partner brand) list is as follows:
A. Lange & Söhne
Angelus
Armin Strom
Arnold & Son
Audemars Piguet
Baume & Mercier
Bovet
Breitling
Bvlgari
Carl F. Bucherer
Cartier
Chanel
Chopard
Cyrus
Czapek
Ferdinand Berthoud
Gerald Charles
Girard-Perregaux
Greubel Forsey
Grönefeld
H. Moser & Cie.
Hermés
IWC
Jaeger-LeCoultre
Laurent Ferrier
Louis Moinet
Louis Vuitton
MB&F
Montblanc
Oris
Panerai
Parmigiani
Piaget
Rebellion
Ressence
Roger Dubuis
Romain Gauthier
Ruclis Sylva
Speake-Marin
Tag Heuer
Trilobe
Ulysse Nardin
Vacheron Constantin
Van Cleef & Arpels
Zenith
While clearly not every watch produced by all of the members would be universally considered high-end, most produce or have produced watches(and/or contributions to horology) which have led to the broader world of high-end watches we see today. And most of them also do produce timepieces that meet the other proposed requirements of cost, materials, construction techniques, etc. And the list does not include all of the Richemont subsidiaries and ventures - it excludes some such as Ralph Lauren watches, Dunhill, etc.
We could likely all agree that "high-end" is a subjective term that will never have an objective definition, but the industry itself seems to have done a good job collecting many of the houses together that could generally, and mostly, be considered to produce some if not many pieces that fall under that category.
Some obvious names missing because they aren't associated with Richemont include:
Patek Philippe
Breguet
Blancpain
F. P. Journe
and who else?
It seems easier to start with what the industry is doing itself and add to it, rather than try to come up with a definition or list from scratch. But that's just one way that came to mind while reading through this.