The folks at Jarvis Architects are a group of outstanding, dedicated professionals who provide top notch service to their customers.
We recently completed an *extensive* home remodel and addition to our 1912 Craftsman Bungalow. Jarvis Architects guided us from initial design through completion!
When we initially contacted Jarvis we had an idea of what we wanted, but were not set on a specific design or plan. Our only requirement was to maintain the character and charm of the original home - to ensure when our “new” home was complete it did not look like an old home on the bottom with a new box on the top. We discovered throughout the process this is exactly the high standards Jarvis sets - maintaining the “soul” of the home while designing a visually and structurally beautiful space.
Throughout the design phase our architect, Cindy, came up with excellent ideas to preserve the character of our home. Although she had ideas of her own, she was never stubborn about listening to our input and working with us to come up with a design we truly loved.
At times I was utterly amazed at her patience as we fine tuned the design and sometimes changed our minds several times on the same room or area.
When we were unsure about what we wanted in a room she would offer suggestions about things to think about that would help us hone in on an idea until we had everything exactly the way we wanted it.
Another aspect of Cindy’s professionalism was her punctiality for meetings and her timeliness in iterating over changes after we met.
The planning and design work for our project was extensive - we completely replaced our foundation, tethered the foundation to the bedrock via
helical piers, raised the entire home by a foot due to a spring under our house, converted two bedrooms into a large kitchen/family room, demoed the entire upper story and replaced it with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a laundry room!
Once the design was complete Cindy submitted the plans in person to the city and they were accepted the first time.
Another way that Cindy in particular, and Jarvis in general, exceeded our expectations was the recommendations they provided for building professionals once the building phase actually started. Not only did they recommend people, but when the building phase started they worked seamlessly with these professionals - the foundation contractor and the general contractor. It was apparent the team of architect, foundation and general contractor had completed many successful projects before. When any complex issues came up they worked as a team, without dissent, to come up with a solution that was always in our best interest. It was never one against each other with us stuck in the middle.
It took a leap of faith and a lot of trust to demo our existing home to the studs except for 3 rooms. The trust we placed in Cindy Chan and Jarvis Architects to remake our home into our dream home was deep. Our completed home is above and beyond what we ever expected it could be. We love it and are forever grateful for their guidance and professionalism throughout the project.
As I reflect on the lifecycle of our project from start to finish and what was most important and invaluable about choosing the architect we hired, these are the qualities I valued most, and where Jarvis came through with flying colors:
1) Dedication to maintaining the “soul” of the home and visual and structural integration of old and new parts of the house, interior and exterior
2) Quality of completed work
3) Responsiveness to requests
4) Access to high quality builders and other building professionals
5) Team approach between us, the architect and the builders and all involved
I very heartily endorse Jarvis Architects!
