A Terrace Garden


Architects & Custom Designers of Homes Embraced by Livable Gardens

Living in a
"GardenHome"
is like living
a dream come true!

Welcome to Our Home Page Who we are & What we do Only Architects can make affordable 'Dream Homes' come true! A Home embraced by a practical yet beautiful Garden is a 'GardenHome'  - Short Overview We'll help you Create a Home that is Better not just Bigger Our partially glass-roofed GardenRooms are meant for everyday living, dining, and entertaining, and perfect for growing indoor plants Our Gardens are places in which to live and enjoy yourself In your private 'RoofGarden' you'll always feel on Top of the World A GeoThermal Heat Pump more than pays for itself by drastically reducing your HVAC and Water Heating bills Let us help you create a Home you won't have to abandon should you ever become disabled in any way A Garden is a series of 'Outdoor Rooms without Ceilings' designed to be lived in and enjoyed. At its most beautiful, 'Landscaping' is still just a picture frame. A beautiful Garden adds to your Quality of Life! Here are the reasons why you should have a Garden rather than just Landscaping Excerpts of Bill Hoppe's upcoming book by the same title. Stay tuned for more chapters! An Example of a GardenHome Concept Design Drawing How we Manage our Projects We want a Close and Viable Relationship capable of Producing the Results you seek! How we will Handle Your Project - Overview What our Hourly Rates are based on Here we'll give you a 'Ball Park' idea of our Costs BEFORE you buy that Property, let us take a good look at it FIRST! Tell us what you think of our site and our 'GardenHome' concept ENJOY Our Biographies and Faces How to get a hold of us


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Why you should hire an Architect

On the subject of Cost ...

     The popular belief that to engage an Architect  to custom design and "oversee" the construction of a single family home by an independent General Contractor is such an expensive proposition that only the extremely wealthy can afford the "luxury", is a misconception which, since the early 1960s, has been carefully inculcated and nurtured by the "Production Housing Industry" (PHI) by means of, literally, millions of well aimed and crafted, corporate and institutional advertisements and PR campaigns at a cost of better than 50 Billion dollars! 

     As counterintuitive as it may sound, however, nothing could be further from the truth!  In fact, no matter where you live in the US and Canada, a home (of any size, large or small) custom designed by a local Architect and built by an independent General Contractor need not cost any more on a per square foot of living space basis (architectural fees included), than an off-the-shelf, stick-built, PHI built house of the exact same design, layout, looks, size, and construction quality!  Why?  Because, no matter where you live, PHI builders are subject to the same local hourly labor rates and the same cost of materials as local General Contractors areKitchen appliances, sinks, bathtubs, showers, and toilets cost just about the same everywhere for everybody.  So do HVAC and hot water systems, electrical and plumbing supplies, roofing and wall materials, flooring, windows, doors, insulation, paint, and the whole gamut of thingamajigs that make up today's house.  

     Where the Architectural fee undeniably adds another 10 -11% to the basic construction cost of a custom built home, the cost of that fee is easily offset by the 12%+ marketing & sales as well as other expenses incurred by the developer and passed on to the client.  To wit;  this country's largest developer places at least 100 full page ads at about $60,000 a pop in 50+ major metropolitan newspapers each year for a total of some $300,000,000.  On top of that, it places another 100 full page ads per year in about 100 local & community papers each at a cost of $30,000 per page totaling another $300,000,000.  Add to that ads on national and local TV channels and in countless magazines such as "Better Homes & Gardens", and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they spend at –the very least– some $850,000,000 on advertising to generate their $±11 billion sales volume (or about 8%) per year.  On top of that, it incurs another 2.5%+ of sales –or about $7,160 per each house sold–  generated by the thousands of empty building lots it carries in its inventory at ±$100,000 each!  Clearly, those are costs and expenses which the independent Architect–General Contractor team does not have and, thus, doesn't "pass on"!   

     Hence, our flat-out statement that a home, custom designed by a local Architect and built by an independent General Contractor will, when all is said and done, prove to be no more "expensive" on a per sq. ft. of floor space basis than an off-the-shelf, stick-built, PHI house of the exact same design, lay-out, looks, square footage, and construction quality, IF one would indeed be available for you to buy!  So much for the myth that only the extremely wealthy can afford themselves the "luxury" of custom architectural services.

     A corollary and, unfortunately, equally popular misconception we would like to address here is that "Architects only care to design big, multi-million dollar houses for the extremely wealthy";  i.e.  that architects are elitist and not particularly interested in designing small to average sized homes for ordinary, middle income folks.  Here again, nothing could be further from the truth!  In fact, the vast majority (85+%) of all architects would be more than delighted to work with middle income clients who want a small to medium sized, well designed and built, yet affordable home of their own.   You want proof?  Spend a couple of hours calling a dozen, or so, randomly selected (from the yellow pages) residential architects, and you'll have it!  

On the subject of Design ...

     Rather than subjecting you to another dry, technical "discussion", this time on our views on the subject of design, we felt that a "playback" of a talk we had not too long ago with the owner of a medium sized (±3,200 sft), well laid out, and beautifully detailed and appointed (inside and out), custom designed (NOT by us, by the way) and built home in the Washington, DC, Metro area, might prove to be more enlightening and entertaining to you.  Here is some of what the gentleman had to say on the subject ...

    "If you just want a big and imposing house that lets every passer-by know that you belong to the "moneyed class" ...
 if having a "good address" in an "up-scale neighborhood" is more important to you than comfort, taste, and good quality ...
  if, in exchange for all that, you won't mind living in a huge, naked place that has all the charm and warmth of a lobby in one of those modern office buildings ...
 if it won't bother you to live in a house that has so much excess, wasted space that, at times, it feels as if you are rattling around in a packing crate and, at other times, as if you've been crammed into a shoebox, if you know what I mean ...
 if you don't mind that the basic quality of the underlying construction in terms of materials and workmanship of PHI built home (go to:  Toll Brothers and Pulte) is at best questionable and at worst disastrous ...
 if you don't expect to own it for more than 5 or 6 years, tops ...
there's no point in looking for an architect.  Why go through the hassle?  All you need
to do is go to your nearest "PHI - Development" and pick one right off the shelf.  Much like buying a car off the lot.  Buy it and drive it!"

    "On the other hand, if you have been dreaming for years of owning a wonderful
HOME  (not just 'a house') every square foot of which perfectly fits your physical
needs and the way in which you and your family actually livea home ....
   the looks and feel of which reflects and perfectly expresses your personality and
   your sense of taste;
   that you'll want to live in and enjoy for the rest of your life;
   that, quality wise, is so well built that it could easily stay within the family for
   several generations to come;
   and that you can well afford ....
I am afraid that you have no choice BUT to look for and hire a good, residential
architect to help you achieve that goal.  That  kind of a house you can't get "off the
shelf" anywhere for love nor money."

Go to ...

Who we Are and What we Offer
The Relationship we seek with our Client    How we do Business
How we Handle Projects    Our Fee Structure    Our Bottom Line
What's a "GardenHome"

Have a Home for Life     "Better" instead of just "Bigger"
"GardenRooms" & Orangeries    Deck and Roof Gardens
 Our Live-in Gardens  
 
GeoThermal Heating, Cooling, and Hot Water