We hired Sanford Berger (Sandy), from SMB Architects or S.M Berger Architecture, P.C. a couple of…read moreyears ago to create plans and manage a large renovation of our home. In summary, and consistent with feedback I've recently received, Sandy proved to be some combination of an incapable architect and a dishonest person.
He "talks a big game" and presents himself as a very reputable person (talks about community involvement, multi-million dollar projects, drops names, etc.). But in my experience this man, sadly, doesn't have the skill or the creativity to be able to handle the project he claimed to be able to do.
Before we hired him we discussed very clearly with him, over multiple meetings and in no uncertain terms, what the project entailed, what the absolute minimum requirements were, what our timeframe was and, most importantly, our absolute maximum budget for the project. He indicated, with complete confidence, that he could design everything we needed to have and even incorporate some "nice-to-haves" within our budget and within our necessary time frame. He said that he was doing a lot of work in our town, that he knew a lot of very good contractors, knew the town's review boards, understood current construction costs very well, and managed and administered full construction projects. In fact, a big part of the reason we hired him was because he sold us on the promise that he would manage the project and keep it moving within budget and schedule, and for which he put in a very handsome fee into the contract. But as soon as we signed the contract and sent him a deposit the problems started to show. Rather than starting right away, as he had promised, it took him a couple of months to be able to provide the first mock-ups or ideas. He was very slow and kept delaying meetings. The only sense of urgency he ever showed was to ask for payments and to cash our checks.
He finally put together some plans that, although not what we had discussed, at least incorporated the minimum requirements and I acknowledge that. Before he would draw plans to get a high level bid he demanded more money, which we paid him. It turned out those mock-ups were probably around 3 times our maximum budget. He then started cutting back on the design until he wasn't meeting even the minimum specs he had committed to, and sent the designs out to his contractors for high level bids. They came back between 2-3 times our maximum budget. He truly either had no sense for what construction costs were, and/or he had not being honest in order to get us to sign the contract. In any case, that means that he's either an incompetent architect, or not an honest person. Neither of those things are what you want, or expect, when you hire an architect to work on your home.
He cut back then plans to the point where they were unacceptable (tiny bedrooms in an attic with slanted walls which meant much of the tiny space was unusable, cut back master bedroom which was a central part of the project, etc.) He bid it out and was still up to 2 times the maximum budget. After wasting over 7 months and a lot of our money, he said that the project couldn't be done anywhere within the budget we had agreed to in the contract, and he stopped doing work. That was 2 years ago.
I sent him multiple certified letters demanding that he return the money he took from us, but he refuses to answer. I even called the American Institute of Architects and spoke to them to see if they could help us get our money back. They called him and said that he acknowledged that he had received the letters and said his lawyer was reviewing them. But that was probably about 7 or 8 months ago and he never responded to the letters.
This was a terrible experience, and it's clear that Sandy Berger (or SMB Architects or S.M. Berger Architecture, P.C.) will not return our money until and unless instructed by a court.
There are a lot of creative, talented and transparent architects out there. Unfortunately, based on my experience, Sandy is not one of them.
