I had high hopes for this company after reading great reviews and viewing photos. They do not reflect the experience we had.
This is a difficult but honest review.
After chatting on the phone regarding landscape architecture design for 7 acres we purchased in Hondo, Josiah mentioned that he could also help design a basic structure plan for our courthouse "barndominium", max 1600 square feet to meet the HOA requirements. It was clean from the beginning that he was not an architect and could help us put something basic together. We mentioned that we would use the property for +/- half the year and a modern place to park our RV. We provided an outline of wants and basic requirements to include lots of windows, courtyard and outdoor living space.
On our first visit, Josiah mentioned that a project like this would cost about $800 square/ft. That did't scare us off because we had not researched prices as of yet, for the area. Same day, He used his drone to take arial footage of the acreage and we paid him $2K to draw up some plans, which he said he would have that same week.
That same week we met with a local developer and land owner, Jerry Reed, a real estate attorney and 2 builders. When we shared the info with them from Josiah, each of them, independently "gasped". The highest of High End houses/ranches/estates in the area may cost $350 /400 square foot. We visited some pretty gorgeous properties and none cost over $350, but we never said we wanted High end.
5 days after meeting, I called Josiah to see if he had started on our plans, thinking perhaps he had some phenomenal ideas. He had not started and mentioned he was headed to a family vacation and it might take up to 2/3 weeks?!?!? That didn't sit right so I called back to cancel but he had gone for the day so I left message for him to call me back. He did not call back but instead sent a 3D rendering that had few, if any of the elements that we discussed. We actually wondered if he was sending the wrong plans.
We played phone tag for the next week. When we finally chatted, I mentioned my concerns. He said things like "If windows were ordered from Europe it could bring up the price." What?? Who said anything about windows from Europe??? It was all just weird and I feel scammed. Better to know sooner than later.
Katherine read more