Whom to Trust with Your Home’s Renovation or Expansion?

The greater Pasadena area is rich in architectural heritage and its historic homes and neighborhoods boast exemplary examples of a range of styles.  As a homeowner, the difficult bit is knowing whom to trust when time comes for renovation or expansion.

One highly regarded firm with expertise in historic renovation is Mark Houston Associates, Inc. in Monrovia.

“We focus mainly on custom residential, including ground-up construction, remodels, renovations and historic restoration,” Houston tells Pasadena Now. “We offer a complete design build process. First, we guide the client through the preliminary stages of design. Then we synthesize all of their needs, wants and requirements into a plan. We refine the plan and then get to a point where we detail the drawings, price them out and then go forward into construction.”

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Houston went to Architecture School and graduated from Cal Poly in 1987. During his apprenticeship he worked for a design build company in Irvine where he did design and drafting for an architect who was also a general contractor – a business model similar to Houston’s practice today.

“I acquired substantial experience in seeing the process from concept to completion early on,” he explains. “From there I worked for a well-known architect in Pasadena, Louis E. Rodwell, for two years. He taught me a tremendous amount about the construction detailing process and conducted frequent visits to the jobsite to show how the details were executed during construction. He was a great mentor in that way.”

How does he deal with seeing a project through from design to construction?

“We actually hire sub-contractors – specialists in their field,” Houston says. “That’s a requirement, especially on historic renovation or detailed remodeling and things of that nature. We take the rigors off the client who is often trying to coordinate between a contractor and an architect as separate entities.”

“Sometimes it’s only design and we’re okay with doing that,” he says.” We also offer services such as – if a client is interested in buying a house – and they really want to know what they’re getting into, we can let them know what it would take to make the house livable, restore the house, or change the house to their liking. We’ve given lots of valuable information to people in that regard. “

“We’re very detail-oriented,” he stresses. “We pride ourselves on making the client fully aware of what they’re getting into before construction starts.”

In Pasadena, there are various styles of homes with a lot of character. That must make his work very interesting and be a real spur for an architect’s creativity.

“We do prefer period-style and character homes; homes that are very common in this area,” Houston explains. “We work a lot with styles such as Mediterranean, Craftsman, English Country, French Country, colonial, and European derivatives.”

So he’s really not a commercial kind of architect.

“After working with Louis Rodwell, I moved onto a firm in Sherman Oaks that was a little more commercially oriented,” he says. “I found that I wanted to do something more creative and original. A lot of firms in the commercial area get into boiler-plate detailing and deal with the same building types over and over. With residential, it’s very diverse in its execution and its detail and its scale and proportions. I just find it a little more fascinating and challenging, actually.”

“I had a four-year stint back in 1998 with a project in Bel Air. That was a 40,000 square foot, 18th century French chateau on which I was one of the consultants. You have to be strict to the time period and all the detail and everything with modern materials and processes. That was fascinating and it was literally four years from concept to completion. Then I went from there to start my own projects under Mark Houston Associates.”

Presumably this kind of work is not something they teach at Architecture School…

He smiles. “The schools give you basic design theory but you actually need to invest time to study a certain way to detail a period home and gain experience,” he insists. “Learning how to put those details together takes a lot of experience.”

What’s the initial process when a client approaches him?
“Well, in most cases, it’s a remodel or restoration or renovation,” Houston explains. “When I come onto the scene, the client usually knows what they want to do but they don’t know how to go about it. We start off with a design program which details everything they want in terms of function, views, the actual circulation and flow of the house, the detailing, materials, landscape… we go through and develop this list of requirements. I transcribe that into a layout and plan. It then evolves from a simple sketch to a real detailed set of construction documents.”

“People tend to think size in relation to cost,” he says. “It’s not always that way. If I were to look at a Ferrari – which is so big – and then look at a Lincoln Navigator, well, the Lincoln Navigator’s bigger but it’s not two hundred grand… One important factor, and this is one of our areas of expertise, is to encourage a client’s creativity and foster and nurture it while maintaining a budget. We could go off on tangents during the design process all night long and have all this fun – and then when the dust settles…”

And the advantage must be that the client can rely on his guidance from concept to completion without having to deal with several firms at once.

“Sure. Our clients only have to deal with one entity, which is really a convenience or luxury for them in most cases. I deal with a lot of clients who own their own businesses or are professionals and have very little time to sit around and coordinate with separate entities in terms of explaining what they want. Most clients really aren’t prepared for that kind of coordination process.”

So what would Houston recommend to a client before they approach him about a project?

“Be clear and know exactly what your priorities are,” he stresses. “Know what’s most important to you. Have an idea of the aesthetic and be honest about the budget. It’s okay in the design phase to be open about the cost. That’s where it all starts.”

Mark Houston Associates Inc., 135 W Foothill Blvd., Monrovia. Visit www.markhoustonassociates.com or call (626) 357-7858.