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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A Welcoming Front door
The Relationship you should seek
with your architect ...

     So you have decided to look for an architect you think you can "feel comfortable working with", have you?  Wonderful!   Considering the fact that designing a home and a garden will be an extremely personal experience for you (as well as for your architect – we might add), that is an extremely important consideration, indeed!

     To you, because in addition to telling the architect  what you need, want, and can or cannot afford financially (budget wise), you must be willing to be honest, to open up, to let him in on who you are, what you are like, what motivates and drives you, what you like and dislike, what you do and don't feel comfortable with, what turns you on or off, what your life-style is, what your hobbies are, what your dreams are, what relaxes you, what "happiness" means to you, in short, what makes you tick!

     To your architect , because during the design process he cannot help BUT reveal himself for who and what HE is, which leaves him vulnerable to your scrutiny and judgment!

     Designing a home and a garden is always a challenging and exciting technical and artistic undertaking.  The process is not a simple and easy one, although it can be a lot of fun and, in the end, prove very rewarding and satisfying. 

     As a client you have to be prepared to enter into a relationship characterized by a good deal of the type of give-and-take you enjoy with, say, your best friend.  The hallmark of any good architect is his ability to "see" and to propose a myriad of ideas, options, and alternate solutions to design problems most of which you might never have thought of, much less considered, on your own.  Therefore, keeping your mind open constantly to weigh and to explore new creative ideas and concepts is absolutely essential on your part!

     In that same vein, to get  the best of what your architect has to offer in terms of design creativity, you must make him feel free to speak his mind and to challenge you, if need be.  You certainly should NOT expect him constantly to tell you what he thinks you would like to hear.  If he does, you should dissuade him of it.  If he persists, fire him!  After all, you hired him not to play the role of a tape recorder or a sycophant but to help you design and create the best home and the best garden that your money can buy!  At the other extreme, neither should you permit him to take the project over to the extent that the resulting home and garden threaten to become more HIS than yours! 

     Throughout the entire home and garden design process you would do well to always keep in mind that the final quality of any design effort is, in equal measures, as dependent on the design creativity and the technical competence of your architect, as it is on the quality of the working relationship he enjoys with you, his client.  Unproductive relationships seldom, if ever, produce viable, let alone, exceptional results!

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The Case for Hiring an Architect   How we do Business
How we Handle Projects    Our Fee Structure    Our Bottom-Line