Aero11Design

We received glowing recommendations for Joe from our good friends. Later, we found out that they, too, had problems with his work. The first few steps in the process was fabulous — so much that we referred him to our friends. Then, they had problems and concerns.
A few things to watch out for. We were told that we needed grading and drainage plans. When we went to the City of Redwood City, we were told that we did not — that would have cost $ 5K+. He stalled the project so that it took 14 months to give us drawings verses the 6 – 8 months originally projected.
Once we started building, he told us that if we had questions about the structural engineers plans to contact him since he was local. Every time we did this, he said he couldn’t help. Now, we are building away and the beams aren’t lining up for our walls because the plans aren’t correct, our stairway has one window, although the lower level plan show one size, while the upper level plan shows another! The clincher to this was us ordering windows based on his calculations — and all three windows are useless!
Joe is a nice person and has good ideas — all I’m saying is beware that you may end up spending far more than you had anticipated!

Rarely do you run into a architect by accident who turns out to be a gem. I ran across Joe Sabel at the Los Altos City Planning Department. I was in the process of remodeling my home — added a study/​media room, a garage, an entry way, remodeling my living room plus improving the curb appeal. I was fairly new to construction and was quickly finding out how expensive even the design process could be. By then I was jaded on talking to numerous architects and was getting the feeling that I could blow my entire budget on design itself!
So I started chatting to Joe, was quickly impressed by his amiable nature and his colorful drawings. I found out that he had an architecture degree from Columbia Univ. He had worked in Manhattan and Chicago. He has designed several homes in Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountain View area. He had designed everything from simple kitchen remodels to entire homes. I called his references and they all turned out be glowing!
When you find a person of that quality, he tends to be expensive. To my (pleasant) surprise I found him to be very affordable. I had to go through a fairly complex process with the Los Altos City because I had to get through a «variance» process. Joe did all the plans, including presenting over 15 different design options for something not so complicated! By far, I am my wife were most pleased with this, because it really enabled us to think through what exactly what we wanted.
Joe ended up doing grading, landscape and other plans as required by the city. He worked with the planning department efficiently, incorporating all their suggestions. Unlike many architects who know little about construction, Joe knows a lot, so he was able to give us many tradeoffs during the design process.
I am not surprised that Joe got so many glowing references, he is a true gem.