Karen Beam Architect LLC

Karen was great to work with - she understood quickly what we wanted to achieve with the renovation and spent a lot of time getting to know how we live. She gave us several plan options and we worked together to come up with the best design for us; her style is eclectic and fluid, depending on what you like. She was generous with her time, considerate of sometimes differing opinions, and was generally a pleasure to work with.

Creative, well-thought out and detailed renderings from Karen Beam of Karen Beam Architecture LLC helped us to achieve our first floor renovations. Karen worked with us to remove several existing walls, create a brand new kitchen/dining room, relocate a powder room, reconfigure our living room and design a mud room area. Karen was truly interested in the best out come for us!

Working with Karen was one of the best decisions we made! We were purchasing a family home with the intention of a major renovation and addition to meet our modern day life needs. Karen did an amazing job of really understanding our needs and how we would use each space to determine the best layout of the house. Other architects we met looked at the house as a structure, where Karen looked at it as a home and made the structure work for our family. She is super detail oriented, organized, timely, and a pleasure to work with.

Karen designed an addition - an art studio - for our home years ago. I spend most of my waking hours in that space and couldn't love it more. So, we excitedly hired her again when we wanted to create a master suite. She was creative and thoughtful in her approach and maximized every square inch for us. I was struck by her amazing knack for envisioning a layout that would be both beautiful, and truly useful. The fact that she is very down to earth, smart and funny is just gravy. I confidently recommended her!

Karen has completed many projects for me, both renovation properties as well as my own home. I would highly recommend her. She truly takes the time to understand how you will use the space, and has the experience to make valuable contribution to the project. Karen is easy to work with. Her creativity surpasses that of others in the industry. She once guided me through the process of installing some massive antique barn beams, from recommending the supplier to making sure the sizing and quality was perfect for my home. I wouldn't use anyone else, and continue to refer her to friends and family.

We recently worked with Karen on a renovation project to our shingle style house. It proved to be a relaxed and enjoyable process throughout, largely because of Karen's positive, professional attitude and approach. She was referred to us by our contractor, and from the start it was an easy collaboration. Karen is clearly very knowledgeable in her field and she offered many design suggestions that ultimately improved the overall look, feel and flow of our project. She was also very attuned to the many historical details that make our home special, and she has carried these throughout the new design to meet our wish of a seamless addition/reworking. Karen was very clear and upfront about the whole design process, the fees involved, and the timetable. She was always prompt in meeting deadlines, punctual for appointments and responsive to all of our questions and concerns. I can easily say that working with her has exceeded all of our expectations!

she understood our vision from the start. follows our direction with the utmost respect but not hesitant to open our eyes to something grander or more efficient

Karen did a wonderful job with our whole house renovation. We changed the floor plan of our rancher completely to make it more unique and added a bathroom, renovated a second bath and created a brand new kitchen. Karen was very patient with our changes and gave us the confidence we needed to move forward. I highly recommend her!

We are very happy with Karen Beam's work. We undertook a large renovation of our home, and we talked to about three different architects. Karen listened better than any of them, asked important questions and had a clear decision-making path. We found some architects were more interested in putting their stamp or style on our home and way of living. Karen's goal seems to be listening to her clients and using her expertise to create a wonderful space suited to the home and the clients. While our home style was different than many of the homes Karen typically works on, we feel that she was able to adapt to the look and feel of our home. She took some risks with us, and we think they turned out wonderfully. (We'll upload some photos soon.) Karen Beam was clear about the stages of the project, her fees and what the delivered product would be. She has been responsive throughout our project, and when our first contractor fell through, she helped us find a more reliable one. We wish we had gotten recommendations for a contractor from her in the first place. She clearly has a good working relationship with quite a few contractors in the area, again a testament to her integrity and the quality of her work.

We met Karen through a contractor we had started to work with. After a few meetings with Karen, my wife & i decided that Karen was a good fit for our project. We were remodeling a cape cod style house that was built by my grandfather in the 1950's. Our need was this: we needed more space as well as an overall update to a house that had been relatively untouched since the early 70's. We were expecting a baby in less than a year, and ultimately were hoping to be displaced from our home for as little time as possible. Our project began in August 2013 with Karen picking up where a previous architect had left off. We began work with another architect a few months prior to meeting Karen, but could not come to a collective agreement on how changes to the house would look. Karen was able to pick up where the previous architect had left off, and help us build a vision of our new remodeled home. She took goals and visions from both my wife and myself and designed a workable vision for our home. She took a previously segmented and sectioned off cape cod and turned it into a beautiful open floor plan for the 1st floor, and utilized the unused space over a detached garage to stretch the finished off 2nd floor of the cape cod to a 3 bedroom, 2 bath floor plan. Karen was able to preserve the history and look of the home, but bring the interior updated to a modern style. Karen was able to have bid plans to us in 1 month, and builder plans available 1 month later, allowing us to keep our project moving along at a good pace. Karen was always very responsive, and was a great communicator with us. She listened to our thoughts and incorporated them into the plans, as well as provided guidance when we were overwhelmed with our own thoughts. Karen comes with high recommendations from the Rubino family. Having been back in our house now for just about a year, we love everything about it, the open floor plan on the 1st floor has allowed us to entertain family and friends on multiple occasions- sometimes with upwards of 60 people here for a specific party. Before our remodel we could barely entertain 5 people comfortably. Thanks again to Karen, and kudos for a job well done!

I discovered Karen Beam when I cycled past a gorgeous house that she had designed/remodeled. In need of an architect to design our garage addition, I decided to call Karen. I was motivated to do this after seeing the artless, clunky designs that our builder had proposed. Karen was wonderful to work with; she quickly grasped our objectives and was able to put my mind at ease that the addition would blend seamlessly with the rest of the house. The project turned out great. She was flexible and came up with a great design after we changed our minds and decided to place the garage behind the house rather than on the front side. I also loved that she was able to help us understand the proper sequencing of the project and what type of permits would be required. I highly recommend Karen. I hope that sometime we will have the opportunity to build a brand new house, in which case I would have her as our architect.

We hired Karen to design our new home, and have enjoyed working with her for many months. She has taken everything we have asked for and worked it into the plan, met with us many times for slight revisions and spent time through email and phone conversations. Our experience has been a pleasure and her professionalism and easy going personality made this project progress smoothly. I would highly recommend Karen to anyone planning to build a custom home.

Though we have not broken ground on our renovation yet, I wanted to write a review for Karen's amazing consultation, enthusiasm for our project, responsiveness and overall professionalism. We are in the early stages of planning an update to our 1950's colonial which will include structural as well as cosmetic work. At Karen's first visit she gave me confidence that she can handle anything we throw at her, or knows a trusted professional that can. I have complete confidence in her and look forward to working with her in the coming months.

We hired Karen to design plans for an addition and renovations to our home. She was wonderful to work with and really understood what we wanted to add/change in our home. We would highly recommend Karen!