Glass Construction

Without question, or hesitation, we would highly recommend Glass Construction to anyone considering a significant home renovation project in DC! Our project involved the complete restoration of our 1895 historic home. The goal was to gut a 4BR-1BA-1LA home and expand it to become a 5BR-4.5BA-3LA home. But we also wanted to get the home back to it's original glory (with all modern conveniences). Our $1M+ project added over 1,500 SF of living space to our home. Glass replaced all the guts of the home (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc.). Glass also dug out and added a finished basement and living area, they added a new third floor to the rear of the house with a new bedroom, and added a new extension and addition for a new MBR (up) and family room (down). Down-back-and up! Glass also matched and restored all of our home's amazing trims and moldings throughout. We basically built a modern luxury home, but to 1895 architectural finish standards. All work was carefully coordinated to adhere to Old Georgetown Board review and zoning standards. Work was performed within budget and within our timeline. Glass brought three distinctive, and memorable, things to our project. First, Tom's creativity, vision and humor helped give us a high degree of confidence throughout the journey. We were the typical renovation project owners -- lots of fears and uncertainties. So we definitely project benefited in numerous ways from Tom's years of experience and his attention to the smallest details. This gave us confidence in both Tom and his team. Our meetings always kept us informed and Tom was always well organized to guide decisions and keep things moving. Tom also maintained a strong relationship with our architect throughout and made sure they worked effectively as a team. We can't say enough about our project supervisor Gary Myers. He was simply outstanding! He went way beyond managing to cost and schedule. Gary brought an artisan's pride in the work. He showed up every day with a passion and commitment to excellence. Gary's sense of pride in his work is a terrific character trait -- and the longer we worked with Gary, the luckier we felt to have the opportunity to work with him. Gary was good at presenting us with clear options to solve challenges, and in doing so he made the journey much easier than we expected. Gary was down-to-earth and could easily (and patiently) translate the technical-speak into easy to understand terms that made decision-making a breeze. This made one of our biggest fears for this type of a project go completely away. Tom and Gary made sure were never overwhelmed and never lost in a sea of details. Gary made sure we focused on the big things and he sweated and made all the little things to make it all work. My favorite part of the project was spending time with Gary walking through the home discussing recent accomplishments. It was like following a proud new father into a hospital nursery -- eager and excited to show his new creation! We still marvel walking through our house at the fine details of the finish carpenters. Glass has a team of real professionals and craftsmen whose work is outstanding! One final note, as a family business, Tom's office staff was also much more attentive than we expected. They were responsive and made sure they answered all our questions, We got to know both Connie and Debra well as we made the journey and they were both terrific to work with! Both Connie and Debra took time to get to know us and our project. So it also made the customer experience really special. It's nice to be able to pick up the phone with a question and know who's on the other line and that they also care about the project. We rate Glass an A+ for the overall customer experience.

Tom Glass and his team transformed a small, neighborhood, derelict Beaux Arts bank building into the most incredible residence - on-time and on-budget. Given my hectic work schedule, I had little time to baby-sit the project. Tom, Mike Hauptman (my architect), and I developed a system of communication in which we regularly discussed issues and made decisions as a trio, thereby avoiding any mixed messages and conflicting directions. With any adaptive reuse project, there were unexpected issues and problems that arose during construction; Tom and his team were great (really great!) problem-solvers. The neighbors even commented that Tom and his team were respectful and kept the noise and mess to a minimum. They were (and still are) polite, respectful, and a pleasure. It was a wonderful experience - unlike my two previous, similar projects. Twenty years later, my house still looks new - both in terms of design and construction/workmanship. For example, as can be seen in the photographs, there was extensive and elegant use of industrial materials such as stone and exposed structural steel. The quality of design and workmanship continue to attract the attention of the print, online, and TV media; at latest count, my house has been "published" 20 times winning the National Association of Home Builders Project of the Year in 1995 and being published twice in Architectural Digest (see, especially, the February 1996 issue). And Tom and I are still good friends. Obviously, I am a huge fan.