We lived in a 3/1 rancher from 1946 in redwood city, and couldn't afford to move. Instead we decided to add to the existing house. We looked at several different architects, and asked a few for ideas at a set construction budget. Peter Baltay at Topos was the highest cost for design services, but also the best concept by far! Me and my family appreciate modern architecture, and told Peter to go wild -- on a budget. He and his associate worked really hard to understand what we really wanted, and came up with a great proposal. They kept with the project through ups and downs, and in the end, we are very happy. I've seen some construction projects go bad before, and compared to that, Peter and friends did great. Not everything is perfect and trouble free even in the best of projects, so consider that when comparing options and diving into a major remodel. read more

We were delighted with the work Topos did for us. Peter is a great listener and presented us with different options, made revisions to the initial mock ups per our requests and helped execute on the option we selected. He helped us find an excellent contractor and his team managed our build. We are very happy with the results and the level of service. read more

I'm happy to strongly endorse Peter Baltay and his crew at Topos Architects as both a design firm and as a project management service. When my wife I are were contemplating building a home, we approached Topos as we had seen a previous spec project they had done and loved it. Design elements include maximizing space utilization, minimizing hallways, lots of light and windows, beautiful wood accents, high quality trim and attention to detail all appealed to us. During our first meeting when I complained about not finding any good lots for sale, Peter pointed out a few, including one particular lot that was not yet on MLS. The location was perfect for us and I ended up buying it 7 days later. The take home is that Peter has contacts in the area that give his clients access to info not always publicly available. We interviewed many architects and came back to Topos. I didn't like how some wanted to deliver a set of plans and walk away, leaving the builder to struggle with implementation. I also didn't like how some were 'out-dated' - I wanted computer-based models so I could visualize my home before it was built. As an engineer type, Peter and Topos were a great fit. I also wanted a firm who would help oversee the process from start to end and not and not pass the potato as soon as things went wrong (without paying through the nose for a personal assistant). I knew from previous contractor experience that building a home wasn't a cake walk and I wanted someone with integrity who I would work with through the entire process - Peter gave me that impression. Perhaps most of all, I wanted to know I was paying a fair price. I hated the standard fixed bid way of building houses where you're always combatting the general contractor over quality and price. I wanted complete transparency. Topos was prepared to offer this and had multiple previous projects to illustrate how this could be done and what I should expect. I want to address some of the negative comments in one review on this site directly. Building a house is not like Extreme Makeover where you go on vacation, return home and say 'Move that Bus' and have the house of your dreams. It is a process with literally thousands of decisions and over a dozen sub contractors. Mistakes are going to happen. Some people are going to do poor work some days. The city is probably going to say you can't do something essential to your design. Some tiles look great in the store but don't work in your house. Bad things happen. If you don't like a design element, it isn't Peter's fault, it is your fault. What you want on your team is someone that will work with you to effectively manage these things, prevent them when possible and deal with them when unavoidable. I can't imagine Peter and Topos doing a much better on this front. I'm willing to bet the negative reviewer never gave Topos a chance to fix what bothered her. In our case Peter and Topos were very up-front about what services they offer and where we might consider augmenting with our own consultants. Many people hire a lighting designer, interior designer, landscape design, etc.. We only hired a landscape guy and did the rest with Topos to save money. It is up to you. Look at previous homes and see what meets your standards and what doesn't. Oh, the comment about not working hard is absurd. Peter is there 8-7 most days. And, when things do go wrong, Topos stands behind the job. In our case a tile sub messed up the master bath. Peter made them tear out thousands in tile and redo it from scratch. While the sub provided the labor, Peter paid for all the tile out of pocket claiming they should have caught it earlier. This is someone who admits a mistake and takes responsibility for fixing it. For a bonus-factor, Peter is an amazing diplomat. He worked with some frustrated neighbors to make them advocates for our project, he worked with the city to find a way top get our gutters and design approved, and most of all he worked with me (which is no easy task) for 18 months to build a beautiful home. One other thing I'll add - in retrospect I undervalued the importance of working with subs that are beholden to the general contractor for their next job. While Topos let me select which contractor to use, there is an advantage to going with ones that they have used in the past and will use again. Because Topos builds a number of projects each year, many of the best subs work from one project to the next (provided you elect to go with them). Because of this dependence, they are incentivized to finish through 110% on your project. There were a few cases where a sub has had to come back many times (often fixing someone else's problems) and they have done so without complaint and without additional 'change orders'. They do it because it is right and they want to stay on Topos' good side. read more

We engaged Peter and his team for a second story remodel on our home. Peter did the architecture and design as well as took on the construction phase. My wife and I really enjoyed working with Peter and his team on this project. Peter was great to work with during the design process. He was a great listener and very responsive to our feedback and requirements. He also provided great guidance to help us through the process and steer us away from unsuccessful paths. We contracted with Peter for the construction of the project. Our experience on this phase was also great. The project manager kept the project well organized, and kept us well informed as we progressed. He was great at managing the list and timing of decisions we need to provide to keep the project moving. All in all, we are very happy with the final result and highly recommend Peter and his team for similar projects. read more

We hired Peter Baltay to design our house on a difficult lot - one that the neighbors had avoided as unbuildable - steep slopes, hundreds of trees and the Palo Alto planning department along with no water, no electricity, no sewage and no fire hydrant. We wanted the house to blend into the setting and we wanted a craftsman interior with a 'little big house' feel. All on a low budget. Peter's design was outstanding. He situated the house in the midst of the trees and positioned it to get the views we wanted. He worked with us to bring together his ideas and our ideas on the design of the house. He always made sure we understood his thinking about why things should be done a certain way. He told us to trust him a lot. We did, and today many of those design decisions are the very things we love most about the house. We used Peter as our Structural Engineer. Peter was able handle some tough structural issues in the design phase without having to compete the design and then modify it to pass the structural analysis. We have three stories and lots of windows and no steel to fix structural issues which was important to us. We also used Peter as the Construction Supervisor. We trusted him to represent our interests. He worked very well with our contractor. He stayed on top of the activity and we had very few (and no major) change orders. Peter worked with the contractor to make sure our budget was well spent. Solid infrastructure with a beautiful interior. Our house continues to get compliments from our guests. We couldn't be happier with the house Peter created for us. We have recommended Topos Architects to a number of friends. read more

Peter Baltay certainly knows how to design a house (and we love the design of our house) but when things get hard like interior details he isn't terribly helpful. His design services "include" interior work, such as tile, but what we found is that he doesn't do interior work in thorough manner. We needed a 3rd party interior designer so in a sense you're paying double for design help. He is competent but basically not very hard-working - when the going gets tough for him he gets irritated or passes the ball to one of his employees. He recommended a contractor to us who turned out to not be very conscientous. I suspect that Peter recommends him so that the contractor will give Peter good deals on his own spec projects. We paid Peter Baltay almost $20,000 to do construtcion management. This was not a good value for $20K. There are other construction management professionals that would have been better at overseeing the project. We felt that he represented the interest of the contractor more than ours during construction. In short, we would suggest people hire Peter Baltay with caution. The design work is good, but we would suggest parting ways after you have design approval from the city. read more

Peter Baltay and Juan Guillen have handled design and management for us on two large projects. The first was a complete gutting and buildout of an office condo with 8 offices and open work space. Fabulous, creative design that did not break the bank. Now he is working with us refurbishing a school campus for a private school. Peter and Juan have been dedicated and relentless in helping us through the city planning department to get necessary permits. A very complicated process they've handled really well. I know I will always go to these guys any time I need an architect or project manaager. They are great, honest, and get the job done well. read more

We hired Peter and Topos to do a major renovation and large addition to our home in Palo Alto. He served as architect, and although we bid the construction, Peter was our choice for builder as well. He was very creative as an architect and learned our taste and designed to it very well. There were a few special features in the home that were quite unique and the result of Peter's creativity, and we enjoy these immensely. He was easy to work with, highly ethical, and completed the job on time and budget, even while tolerating us living through the whole project. I can recommend him without reservation, especially for projects with Peter's signature look. read more

We have used Peter for 3 projects over the last 10 years including 2 major home remodels. His style is a blend of craftsman and modern that we call transitional craftsman. We really like this style with lots of wood and clean lines. Peter was absolutely the most fair in terms of price because he is an architect, a structural engineer, and because of his hands on experience he can do good construction management (well worth the expense in our opinion). One thing you will find with Peter which worked for me but may not work for you is that he is very firm in his opinions which can lead to constructive conflict with a little bit of arguing...but honestly I think that delivers a great end result and at the end of the day that is what is important. Peter recommended Oscar Chavez as a contractor and we had a great experience with Oscar all three times as well. High quality work overall (with a few glitches by some of his subs here and there) and more importantly high integrity. There was a fair bid and no nickle and dimming. If something was an easy fix he just did it and if there was a massive change because of a structural issue then we paid for it because it was fair. read more

TOPOS did a great job on a 2002 renovation we did. Peter Baltay came up with some creative designs that I never would have thought of. We turned a crummy utility room into a 25-seat movie theater and a leaking sun porch into a 5th bedroom. The selection of windows and doors was excellent, and the whole middle of the house went from dark and gloomy to very bright with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling doors and windows. During construction we had some issues with the contractor, but the architectural design itself was exactly what we wanted, and I would certainly recommend Peter for any residential design job. read more

My wife and I totally renovated the 1500 sq foot basement of our Palo Alto home and Topos helped us start to finish as both designer and general contractor. They showed both an ability to turn our rough ideas on how to use the space into a great livable design and also great attention to detail in the execution. Their design process was truly collaborative and open and there were no surprises. Importantly in Palo Alto, they also helped us navigate the city permitting process very effectively. They also worked quite effectively with other contractors we retained for other aspects of the overall project. I recommend them highly and in fact referred one of my closest friends to Peter and his team and they did a great job for them as well on a larger and even more complex residential renovation. read more

We recently moved into a house in Palo Alto that we designed and built from the ground up with Topos Architects. The process took about 2 1/2 years start to finish including slow Palo Alto permitting, and we love the final product. Peter Baltay's houses are full of light and windows, well thought-out detailing, and high quality materials. We first encountered his work when looking for a built home in Palo Alto several years ago, before we ever considered building for ourselves. One of the few houses we saw that really appealed to us (except the location, which wasn't ideal for our circumstances) was a spec home Topos had built. I still remember marveling at the quality of the woodwork on the doors and cabinets, the flow of light, and the way that corners and angles were turned into useful, charming spaces. So when we finally decided to look into building, my husband went to talk to Peter Baltay about the process. We were incredibly fortunate that at that meeting, Peter mentioned a lot that he knew an owner wanted to sell, in exactly the location we wanted. One week later we bought it. My husband had immediately formed a great impression of Peter and his firm, and even after meeting with other local firms, we decided to work with Topos. Other than buying the lot, this was the best decision we made along the way. My husband is highly detail-oriented and value-conscious when it comes to building, and has experience with basic construction, electrical, and functional design. Most architects/builders would probably go crazy working with him, because he's so hands on and particular. Yet Peter welcomed his input, and they worked well together through the whole process. In fact, Peter has an incredible diplomatic ability, which is very helpful in this field. Many of the subcontractors he recommends (although they do collect bids from multiple subs and some are new with each job) are well-known to him, and do high quality work (especially painting/drywall, cabinets/woodwork). No one finds perfect subs for everything, but when my husband wanted things redone, they got redone without any quibbling. Peter even personally smoothed out what could have been a big conflict with our neighbor over our design, such that we now get along very well with her (without changing our design)! Because the firm is small and personal, this sense of integrity, diplomacy, and adapting to the needs of the client is really the ethos of everyone who works there. And now that we've finished building, we remain good friends with them and my husband is even helping with other Topos projects! I think few people can say that about their architect/builder after a major construction project like this one. From my perspective as the member of our family most concerned with interior design and finishes, Peter and the Topos staff made the process much less stressful than I had imagined it would be. They have the timing for decisions about finishes down to a science, so I never had more decisions to make at one time than I could handle. When it was time to choose appliances, lighting fixtures, paint, or tile, that was all I had to think about, and they gave great suggestions that helped narrow down the enormous field of choices in each area. We went together to shops or dug through sample boxes in the office, until everything felt right to me. It's still a lot of work, but much less painful when broken down. As you can tell, I don't have any negatives to share about our experience working with Topos and Peter in particular. If we were to do it again, we would definitely work with Topos for both design and build. We love the finished product, and the process went as well as we could possibly imagine given that building a house from the ground up is a huge undertaking. read more

We hired Peter and his team for what we thought would just be a minor addition of a bedroom and study to a small house on a small lot in Los Altos, and he patiently worked through six different designs with us. He eventually nudged us into doing a full tear-down, which we never ever imagined doing, but which turned out to be absolutely terrific & surprisingly painless, largely due to Peter's design and the excellent work he did, as well as that of the contractor he recommended (Oscar Chavez). We had neither time nor patience for showroom visits to pick out finishes or fixtures, etc, and Peter & his team were extremely helpful & accommodating by doing things like narrowing down choices for us to just a few & bringing samples on-site. Our project was finished on time -- and about 4 months earlier than a co-worker of mine who was doing a tear-down/rebuild at the same time. We love the house we ended up with -- as does virtually everyone who comes into it (or even walks by -- passers-by stop all the time & say how much they like the house; I've even caught people taking photos of it from the street). I have recommended Peter & TOPOS to friends & co-workers -- and will continue to do so. read more

We selected Peter Baltay for an extensive remodel to our house on the Stanford campus. The original was designed by William Turnbull, a famous west-coast architect. Our design requirements included more space, more light, and above all a more functionality. We also wanted to retain the unique character of our home. Peter's solution was thoughtful and innovative, and more than met our objectives. Peter served as architect, and also managed the construction. Peter worked with us to solve the changes that always come up during construction, and always graciously found ways to incorporate our needs. Of all the architects I have worked with, including dozens in my professional life, Peter (IMHO) was the best in containing the costs of project change orders. The end result was impressive, a clear restatement and improvement on the original. So much so, that our neighbors all commented on the work, and several hired Peter for their own remodels - including two right on our block. A few years later, when we moved from the Bay area, our home's design attracted multiple bidders. In the bid openings, each of them told us they were totally taken by the design and craftsmanship of the house. We would highly recommend Peter for design and for project management, without reservation. read more

Peter is a very talented architect and perhaps more rare is of high integrity. We would welcome the opportunity to work with him and his team again. read more

Peter Baltay, and his firm Topos Architects, is one of the preeminent residential architects on the West Coast. Peter completed two large projects for us -- a brilliantly designed art studio with water feature, and a stunning new modern Craftsman-style home on a challenging but beautiful rural site. Peter is a master designer-builder with fine attention to detail, natural light, sustainability, expert understanding of structural engineering and how you get great designs actually built in the field, including working with neighbors, design review, and getting top-tier results from subcontractors and tradespeople. He's deeply respected for his personal and professional integrity. No problem is too difficult for Peter to solve in an aesthetic, practical, timely and cost-effective way. But, most importantly, he's just really fun to work with! Designing and building a home with Topos is a highly recommended five-star life experience. read more

Peter Baltay and Topos Architects transformed my very small fixer-upper into a gem of a house for my family. He was able to design a house that suited the needs of a young teenager, a working parent and a disabled grandmother. His design made the optimum use of light and space. His creativity and sense of design not only made my home livable, but he made it a pure delight. He took a kitchen that was no more than a hallway and turned it into the centerpiece of our home. His attention to detail and functionality was superb. The handmade maple cabinets and the beautiful wraparound granite counter made the kitchen the place where everyone wanted to be. I would highly recommend Topos architects for any home design or remodeling project. read more

We worked with Peter Baltay on a 2000/2001 remodel (rebuild) of our house. As an architect, he did a superb job developing a creative innovative design that brought out exactly what we wanted but could not see ourselves. We then signed him on a GC and he completed the house on time and on budget. He brought in great subs, dealt with our whims, desires and stresses and was fun to work with throughout. An excellent experience - have and will strongly recommend him. read more

Peter did a fantastic job working with us on our remodel. We struggled with a concept that would work on our existing home and structure. He drew up several designs, discussed them with us, but none seemed right. Then a few weeks later, Peter called and said that he hds a concept he believed would meet our needs and after review we agreed! As this was our first major remodel, Peter assisted with getting us through the city planning and design reviews and worked well with our General Contractor. I would absolutely utilize Peter's services in the future. read more

Peter designed our total remodel in San Francisco and we embarked on the process with a clear design intent in mind, especially for the interior. The design Development was quite quick and once he understood our requirements we quickly found a solution we all were happy with. Initially we just thought of using him for Design Services but, having not found the right GC for the project Topos stepped in as the GC, calling upon a good set of subs for the various aspects of the project. We did go over budget but not by more than what the original contractors quoted us fixed fee, and that was before we discovered in demo that the center part of the house had no foundation! Five years later I called him for the first time with an issue with a small leak, which goes to show how the house, when you chose the right people and right materials can be hassle free. Peter does not up-sell the materials used in a project but at the same time is steadfast on not cutting corners if it means that saving a buck today will mean a problem tomorrow. He didn't always agree with what we said and vice versa but the mark of a good and successful working relationship is when the other side listens and understands what the pros and cons are of each decision in the desing and construction process. We would have no problems in working with Peter again, however, as we really love our house, we fear it will not be for some time! read more

Peter Baltay is an excellent professional who pays close attention to detail and does a great thorough job. I definately recommend him for any construction/architect jobs and is backed up by years of professional experience. I wouldn't go to anyone else! read more

Peter Baltay worked with us on first a remodel and then a second-floor addition to our home in Palo Alto. We enjoyed collaboration with Peter on the projects and remain quite pleased with the results of both. Peter has an excellent sense of the interplay of space, light, and materials. In the design phase of each project he prodded us through a number of right decisions that required a good instinctive eye for how the final product would feel and function. The interior design emphasizes simplicity with natural wood and stone materials offset by plain wall colors. The addition required considerable architectural design with particular attention to detailed proportions and angles to produce a natural match to the existing structure. We especially like the resulting appearance of a less-tall second floor with well thought out window extents and placements. And we are quite glad that Peter talked us into the soaring two-level windows in the open main room. The engineering aspects of the addition were also done well with appropriately conservative overheads in foundation and support upgrades. We engaged Peter to monitor the construction phases of each of the projects. Peter's initial estimates of the project costs and schedules were close baselines, and he worked with us and the contractor to negotiate a final design and scope of work that met both our needs and goals. Discovery is often a part of a remodel project, and Peter continued to provide modifications and additional design detail that avoided delay and cost overruns. We have recommended Peter to friends. read more

we had to renovate a 30-year old house. topos was extremely innovative and yet, very responsive to our needs. peter, chief architect, was always willing to put our needs first and complemented them with his novel thinking. after the construction had started, he was always there for us and advocated our interests agains the general contractors, which could become crucial when discussing change orders, payment schedule, and materials. i highly recommend topos without any reservation. read more