We worked with Wagstaff and Eric to design our ADU…read more This was a rebuild of an existing internal space in our main house into an official ADU, so came with significant constraints on size and layout. Eric was great to work with; he was responsive and listened carefully to our ideas. Billing was clear and the final cost came in approximately at or under Wagstaff's estimates, including a number of design iterations. The design process was a partnership and contributions from both sides were crucial to the final product. We provided strong opinions on how the space was to be used and requirements. Eric provided design ideas, and used his good understanding of space, building constraints and opportunities to validate our ideas and turn them into reality (or provide alternatives). My main regret is that we did not use Wagstaff enough! We did our own construction observation, but next time I would ask Wagstaff to take responsibility for that. We're delighted with the result and would use Wagstaff again!

I worked with Eric on a new construction build plan. Overall, I do not recommend this firm…read more 1. We did not align on high level how the flow in the new house should be, and he ended up drawing the detailed plans even if it was not what we wanted. Costed us 10k+ for nothing. 2. Every iteration was more than 5 hours, even if all he did was add a door/bath (no big changes). 3. He optimized for things that made no sense to us. Like he optimized for keeping one of the walls from the current house, even if we said we don't care about the current house (since this is a rebuild). 4. He sent plans to us that were still over the allowed limit 5. He talked to the city to understand the requirements, and understood them wrong. The limit for our lot that he said we need to respect was not correct, even if he talked to the city. 6. He asked us to get an "As built survey" even if we want to rebuild the house fully. Hi another 5k dollars. Overall I do not recommend working with this firm. We paid them way too much money for something that we could not use. Completely useless.

Stewart Summers and Steve Murch were invaluable to our home renovation and new ADU build project…read more From overall design to the nitty gritty technical minutiae we had a great experience with SKS. I was able to reply on SKS during the entire process, from wading though the city, county, and State permitting, construction costs, and straightforward talk & solutions to the surprises that come along with any major home renovation. I highly recommend SKS.

Stewart Summers is the guy you should hire! He's easy to talk to. He listens. He's creative. He's…read morekind. He's talented. He develops YOUR ideas and not just his own. He's very collaborative and has a great team of people working with him. I am speaking from experience. After having worked with FIVE previous architects, this is the ONLY guy I will work with going forward. He's.....amazing! AND! You should see my house. It belongs in architectural digest!! Color me: Really happy to have crossed paths with such a splendid human being.

Mark moved his business to Berkeley and I just updated contact, etc. He designed and fabricated…read moretables for our restaurant. They kick butt. Huge hunks of concrete stained crazy colors. When one table got damaged he came and repaired for free. He also did design and contracting on the building down the street and it is simply stunning. Nice guy, honest and on time which is rare in this industry.

Mark has done various jobs for my house over the last few months. His work is of high quality with…read moregreat attention to detail. He's also very knowleadgeable about work on homes which is a plus for a new home-owner; plus, he freely shares this knowledge with me. Mark's rates are very reasonable too. Work he's done for me: painting trim in living room, caulking, stabalizing wobbly stairs, helping me get a permit (drawing designs), bolting of foundation, and securing plywood to foundation. I'm completely satisfied with the work Mark's provided and highly recommend him!

Othon is a very detailed and thoughtful architect. His work is a reflection of his commitment to…read moredoing the very best. His team keeps up to speed on the latest codes and ensures that the job is done to current spec.

Phil Rossington was the right choice for our home renovation project, which wrapped up in 2023…read more We found Phil after having spent quite a bit of time with another architect and being disappointed with her resistance to some of our key preferences. We checked out Phil's online portfolio before contacting him and saw that it included a variety of attractive elements spread across several different projects we thought could be adapted for our project. After our first meeting with Phil, we hired him to take over our project, which was still in the schematic design phase. His extensive experience in San Francisco was an important consideration, but the deciding factor was Phil's communication style. During the whole journey through design, permitting, bidding, and construction, Phil contributed creative ideas that we incorporated to very good effect. He dove deeply into materials selection and introduced us to suppliers we hadn't discovered on our own ever after countless hours of online search. Critically, when we hit him with unconventional requests, Phil's patient, open, positive, thoughtful responses drove us toward jointly agreeing how best to satisfy them. We interviewed four contractors introduced by Phil, two of whom he had worked with previously on completed projects. We hired one of the two others, who turned out to be a solid professional. Phil's heavy engagement during construction helped immensely in getting the best quality out of the contractor. Our house isn't large, but the renovation was fairly extensive -- five walls were moved or removed, and all electrical, plumbing, flooring, and drywall was replaced. If you have your heart set on building or renewing a home in the Bay Area, don't miss the chance to meet Phil Rossington and talk through your project with him.

We hired Phil as our architect on a large scale remodel and he completely reimagined the space. It…read morewas a challenging footprint to work but his vision transformed our home and we are thrilled with the results! He was masterful in incorporating our needs while bringing innovative ideas and cool design elements we would never have thought of but absolutely love. He is thoughtful in his design choices and created a home that feels unique and comfortable. Phil felt like our trusted advisor helping us navigate the complexities of our remodel. He was involved every step of the way, working closely with the city, the contractors, sub contractors, etc. We really appreciated leaning on his expertise and all the time he spent with us to explain and guide the many decisions we made during the process. He has incredible attention to detail and we are so grateful for the beautiful home he created for our family. Phil is professional, trustworthy, and a joy to work with. We highly recommend Rossington Architecture.

I have used Elevate design on several of my projects. I have found Justin to be very in tune with…read moretoday's trends. His plans are clear and easy to understand, and he communicates with you, and listens to what your saying. I also have referred him to others, and they have all had great feed back on how Justin took care of them.

Be careful if you work with Dennis Freeman for cabinetry of any sort. Dennis Freeman used to own…read moreCascade Cabinets and I was unfortunate enough to waste $20K on kitchen cabinets through him. I was doing a complete kitchen remodel and my general contractor pushed me into using Dennis Freeman. I am now saving money to have his terrible work, which is peeling like crazy, refaced or repainted. During planning, I asked Dennis if there was a downside to paint-grade cabinets vs. stain-grade, and he said there was none: they were equally durable. I opted for paint-grade because of the color scheme I wanted, and his cabinets began to peel within two months. When I first noticed it, I was $40K poorer for my new kitchen, and I was HEARTBROKEN. I had worked so hard to save that money. I hoped the peeling wouldn't get much worse, but during the first year of my brand-new kitchen, the peeling continued. The project was more than a year finished when I finally contacted Dennis about the terrible quality of his cabinets. I was relieved that he agreed to come and fix the peeling ones. But he never came, despite *many* phone calls, and I understood after some time that he never planned to. I wrote a strongly worded negative Yelp review about Cascade Cabinets (this business of his has since closed). This also didn't mobilize him, but at least I hoped to help others avoid my mistake. I finally had to contact the general contractor who had managed the project, and he persuaded Dennis Freeman to correct his work. Dennis showed up and told me that I had to expect this sort of result from paint-grade cabinets (hello? 1. Where was this information when I first asked? and 2. I know people with excellent and durable paint-grade cabinets in their kitchens!). He also blamed the peeling on the cabinets being near the sink/moisture (hello again? 1. This is a kitchen, he knew that from the start, and 2. With time, even the cabinets farthest from any water source have started to peel). He advised me on how to care for them, but I had already been following his instructions to only wipe them with a damp cloth all along. Anyway, he took the worst and most peeled doors down and went away with them; returned with them "fixed" and they promptly resumed peeling within a month. He then asked me to take down my Yelp review since he had corrected his work, and I deleted it reluctantly, because what I wrote was still true. When the replacements started to peel, I had no energy left to fight anymore; it had been such a struggle just to get these sad corrections done. This project was in 2011; it was 2012 when he fixed some of the worst cabinet doors. It is now 2019 and the cabinets look like hot garbage. Huge flakes are coming off them. I am afraid to clean them because I don't want to contribute to the peeling. I worked so hard to save up for that kitchen remodel, and this just makes me want to cry. It wasn't right for me to remove that Yelp review, and now that I am going to be spending money to repaint/reface his cabinets, I have to warn anyone else who might be considering using his services. To be clear: I don't know anything about Elevate Design Build; his other partners in this venture may be quite competent and ethical--I have no idea. All I can say is BE CAREFUL ABOUT CABINETS with this company, ask who's doing them, and get some kind of serious warranty that spells out your durability expectations.

We hired Chris to draw up some plans for an addition that we are planning to put on our house in…read moreBerkeley. From start to finish it's been an excellent experience. Chris is a recently retired general contractor, and has a WEALTH of knowledge about building and design. He's also super warm, open, funny, and easy to work with. We were having trouble envisioning how we could possibly add on to our small single story house in Berkeley to make it into a 3bdrm, 2 bath...our house has an odd layout....tricky to explain, but Chris came by, took a plethora of exact measurements inside and out, and drew up some truly wonderful ideas that I never would have been able to come up with on my own. Super professional, friendly, and extremely skilled. Save yourself thousands of dollars paying an architect and go with Chris who has a lifetime of building experience and a keen eye for how to make your house a place you're really excited to live in. A truly 5 star experience.

I'm amazed that Gary has 12, five-star reviews that are hidden by yelp's algorithms. I've never…read moreseen anything like it on yelp (I'm posting on March 11, 2016). Gary's clients don't post enough to make the mark so the reviews are "hidden" (but you can still read them). That means his clients have gone out of their way to register and post five-star reviews when they normally wouldn't do it for anybody. Some of the hidden reviews are extraordinary and heartfelt. I worked with Gary when I was building and remodeling and Jamie C. nailed it for me with his review: "I'm a builder who does a lot of work for Gary but we work for a lot of other architects as well. Gary is builder friendly. He addresses the technical and practical issues as well as the aesthetic and architectural ones. I think this is often reflected in the final cost to the homeowner. I know I can safely reduce my margin knowing that Gary has my back. His projects are well thought out and easy to build. (they're spectacular as well)" Working with the builder and being builder-friendly is being client-friendly at the same time. Making sure the projects are "buildable" is critically important for the flow of the project. I don't know any other architects that give it as much consideration as Gary does. And, there is never a compromise with the quality or goals of the project. That's a win-win scenario for the builder and client. I can't take claim for the first to review Gary Parsons, but it's nice to be the first one that shows up- hopefully..

We just finished our second project designed by Gary and we couldn't be happier…read more In 2010, he took a master bedroom with just a half-bath, and expanded outside the walls of our 1907 Berkeley brown-shingle house to give us a beautiful bathroom with a dramatic, high barrel-vault ceiling. It was out-of-the-box thinking that turned what we would have been happy to have as just a functional full bath into a centerpiece of the house. We joke often about the bathroom being the nicest room in the house. He and his team brought lots of wonderful details from the rest of the house into the bathroom and it fits seamlessly. This summer we updated our kitchen and Gary's design incorporated high windows, a furniture quality black walnut hutch and other great details to give us a more modern, yet still timeless looking kitchen. Our contractor echoed one of the other reviews here (mysteriously hidden, I guess because the reviewers hadn't written many reviews before and the algorithm doesn't like that?) that Gary's designs translate into buildable projects very easily. And he anticipated all the structural issues, brought in an engineer and delivered plans that sailed through the city of Berkeley building department (and that's not always easy).