Joe Hanauer, the owner of Landscape Architecture, is a talented and caring professional, who is dedicated to providing excellent landscape design and high quality installation. Moreover, he backs it up with outstanding service before, during and after the project is completed. I know this well because I learned this the hard way.
I worked with Joe 15 years ago on the first house that I built in this area, and then again on my current house. He came highly recommended to me from the brilliant architectural firm that designed both my homes. Joe did the landscape design for my first home, which was a very tricky lot with different elevations and a non-conventional shape and house footprint. Joe's plan took these challenges and turned them into assets. From both aesthetic and structural standpoints, his plan served my house well throughout the 10 years that I lived there.
Three years ago, I built a new house. Once again, my architect recommended Joe to me for the landscaping. Joe is very professional. He listens very carefully to what his clients want and responds with thoughtful ideas and thorough explanations. As such, I was very eager to work with him again. Our house was finished in December, so we did the minimal landscaping before moving in. We hired Joe to do the rough grading and window well walls before moving in and left the rest of the landscaping for the spring. As expected, Joe's crew did excellent and timely work.
When spring came, our story took a turn when we made a huge mistake. We had a financial setback that left us unexpectedly short of funds to do our landscaping, which we had hoped would include a significantly sized patio/fire pit/bench wall in addition to the normal landscaping, grass, trees, and plantings. As much as I wanted to work with Joe again, we interviewed several other highly-rated landscapers and solicited two additional competitive bids to get a better sense of what we might be able to afford under our new financial constraints. One bid came back in the same ball park as Joe's bid and the other bid, from a well-known landscaper in town, came back significantly lower. Under Joe's bid, we would have had to wait at least one more year to do the patio, whereas under the low bid, we could do the landscaping and patio right away. In what was a really really hard decision, and one that would prove to be the WRONG decision, we decided to go with the low bid so we could get the job done right away. We did this even though we liked Joe's plan better.
Long story short...our decision to go with another landscaping company was a disaster. They definitely cut corners in their implementation in order to low bid to get the job. The trellis they built fell down. Much of the grass seed from the lawn blew into our mulch beds where it seemed to grow better than where it was supposed to grow. Several of the shrubs and trees that were planted died (and had to be replaced under warranty). And most catastrophically, our fire pit and the patio around it collapsed into a hole due to improper soil compaction. The responses of this landscaper: not our problem and they handed us a bid to fix it that was about half the cost of the original landscaping job.
Re-enter Joe. At this point, I contacted Joe to describe this situation. Now Joe would have every right to stay out of this situation, given that we had decided to use another company for our landscaping after he had done the initial work. But what did Joe do? He has actually been a huge help to us with this situation. He did a careful analysis of the collapse (much more careful than the company who built the patio). Thankfully, he agreed to bid on the reconstruction. And there was no question this time that we would go back to Joe. As he and his crew took the collapsed patio apart, he showed us in a very detailed way, the various pieces of evidence showing that the layers underneath the patio had not been properly compacted. Our patio is now back together thanks to Joe. For us, it was a lesson learned the hard way.
When you find someone as excellent to work with like Joe. You stick with him. Every time, I have contacted Joe during the two landscaping jobs and after the patio collapse, he responded quickly and was out to see me within 24 hours. Like his work crew, Joe shows up on time. He explains everything thoroughly. Landscape Architecture is a small business, dedicated to high quality work. So when you hire them, you get Joe. Joe does the analysis and the design work. But then he also shows up when his crew implements the design. He has always been very communicative and honest with us. He does excellent work and gets it done on time and within the budget estimate. It's no wonder, my architect recommends him so highly. read more
