Amazing service! Nick was willing to help advise with a situation I was dealing with. He went out…read moreof his way to answer any questions I had for almost 20 minutes. And, he didn't charge me a dollar. At the end, he even referred me someone who could help me better with my situation. Really appreciate the help, Nick. You're a godsend. Highly recommend.

I am not accustomed to writing reviews unless the services rendered were exceptional. That was the…read morecase with SimpleTwig Architecture...... I was looking for an architect to change my two family investment property to a three family investment property. Having no experience in this matter, Nic was fantastic. He took the time, via e mail or telephonically, to walk me through the process step by step. As stated in previous reviews, he is not looking to "take your money" unless he can assist you. As it turns out, I was unable to use his services because the property could not be converted to a three family dwelling. In the future if I need an architect, I need not look further. Kallie

Steve helped me to get a 19-year old outstanding DOB permit approved for an apartment in a landmark…read morebuilding. This wasn't a creative project for an architect. Actually I am sure it was very painful to deal with all the red tapes. During those 4 months, he even contacted me in the after hours to give me the progress. Thank you.

My answer to your response is - I guess you never worked with an expeditor. I never asked you to…read morepull permits yourself. ---------- Where do I begin? This architect is disgustingly unprofessional and more importantly, a bad person. He was 15 minutes late to our meeting, walked in while I was speaking to his co workers, Jasmine and Dong, and was completely dismissive about the entire meeting. When I started to ask him about the next steps to move forward, like how to pull permits and the pricing for the design, he completely FLIPPED out telling me why would he pull permits when that's the contractor's job? I was a bit taken aback since my previous architect pulled permits alongside my contractor. He then started to allege that I use unlicensed contractors. I started to wonder what he was getting at and why he was being such a rude jerk. He then had the nerve to pull out the BIS gov website and ask me about the contractor I used and the address. When I tried to tell him the architect firm, he got very angry and said why would I care about the architect? HELLO! You asked who pulled the permits! He found my previous project and everything was up to code. This guy is disgusting. There is NP way he's a legit architect because he doesn't have any skills on how to speak to clients. Stay away. You can find architects who pull permits alongside the contractors. This means he has very bad relationships with the DOB.

I cannot say enough good things about my experience with Paul and his staff at Architects Rule. I…read morecame to Paul with no contractor and no experience in doing home renovations and all it entails. Not only was Paul accessible to all of my calls and texts but he recommended the best contractor for my project. Paul's best quality is the fact that he is upfront HONEST and to the point. He gave me excellent advice on many little nuances that arose during my project and his work was thorough, detailed and professional. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND ARCHITECTS RULE!!!

What a diva! Someone else mentioned how emotional he gets and i couldn't agree more. Instead of…read moreworking to solve issues he just stamps his feet and pouts. While he initially sounds good on the phone, he's utterly lazy. The man cannot pick up a finger to do the work you paid him to and he'll make up excuses the whole time. He also reeks of sexism but you can judge that one on your own. There are a million architects in New York. No need to put up with this one.

Had a great experience with Scott and his staff. Needed a small job done, a bathroom draft. He…read morewelcomed the opportunity to help and was nothing but professional and personable. He was very prompt and helpful. Price seemed very fair and advised if I needed any assistance after he completed the job, that I could reach out at any time. Highly recommend.

Thanks so much Scott and the entire staff at oyster bay drafting, my plans are submitted and my…read morepermits for finished basement are on the way. Scott always returned calls that or next day, Received emails on plans to insure plans are satisfactory to me.Scott is very Knowledgeable and I'm so so glad of his vast knowledge of building codes and just so really easy to work with please give oyster bay drafting a chance thanks Owen

Last year I received an "ECB violation" on my queens residence for converting my garage into a room…read moreto accommodate a separate entrance for a disabled handicap child. Anyone who has a home in queens know that it's pretty much impossible to convert an existing condition in your said zone due to historical preservation. Now, as good as my architect was that I had already hired, I had my doubts! So I decided to get a second opinion from my property managers recommendation and see S.M. Berger founder Sanford (Sandy) Berger who gave me more then I expected considering I already had an architect that i was paying a substantial amount of money to take care of my situation. Hiring ANY architect is very expensive due to the nature of the work because many changes can occur in completing and satisfying your needs or the governments violations. Mr. Berger not only gave me the utmost ethical, professional, creative advice he also went out of his way to get his expeditor to analyze my project and find a solution. His advice saved me alot of headache and most of all thousands of dollars. He was reliable, relentless above all determined and took time out of his schedule for weeks to gather imperative information about the history of my location and the corrections that required for me to pass my upcoming inspections. What I appreciated the most was the straight forward to the point advice, no run around no sugar coating. My cost for this very expensive situation.... He did it Pro Bono!!!! My gratitude for what he did for me, more than anyone can imagine!!!!!

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.

Gino Longo and his team have demonstrated their knowledge, experience and professionalism in…read moresecuring a final CO for my home. The home was rebuilt from the ground up 20 + years but the contractors never had final inspections nor closed the permits. Gino and his team are very friendly and very professional with knowledge and extensive experience when dealing with the NYC DOB. Very thankful for having the right team on my side. Highly recommend Gino and his team for such services, with very reasonable fees.

I am a real estate developer in NYC and I have had a wonderful experience with the architect Gino…read moreLongo. Mr. Longo has a nice operation going. His staff is wonderful and very welcoming. New construction has not been easy in NYC in the past few years. There is so much red tape with the city agencies but Mr. Longo's office was always accessible to help me. His team is wonderful and they solve problems. I will absolutely do business with architect Gino Longo again.

We hired Pezzello based on the recommendation of a friend about 13 years ago. I'm submitting this…read morereview many years later because for one thing when I tried to leave feedback when the work was done it was somehow removed from another site, and most importantly because we are now looking for help to fix the issues Pat and crew created for us. Amusingly I left this review on another site recently and Pezzello has disappeared from that site meaning my review went with them! What are they hiding from?? Our biggest current issue is our leaking roof and the quality of the job Pezzello provided. Every contractor who has come to see our roof to estimate the cost to repair is shocked at how bad it was done and the state it is in after only 13 years. The wood is rotting and potentially growing mold in places. It sagged even soon after it was completed, and has not gotten any better over the years. The siding was wavy from the day they installed it and is loose in multiple areas on our attic because there are no walls for it to adhere to. They never installed plywood walls so there are many large holes in drywall due to them trying to nail the siding into the drywall only. Two of the new windows they installed broke in half nearly immediately after they left. Calls to replace them went unanswered. They installed a front door without staining it and when we asked why they said it was never part of the job. We had to hire a 3rd party to stain it after it was hung so it was never done properly. Gaps were left between the new door and our tile as well as around a new set of steps that were installed. Most of this I attribute to the Pezzello team just rushing through the work. No attention was paid to details. No care put into the work performed. As a result we're left needing to have another contractor come in and fix the mistakes for additional money. For this reason I am giving a single star for value. I don't care how good their price was 13 years ago if I need to be charged again to do it right. One star for customer service because as I said, they ignored our calls and didn't fix the obviously broken windows. One star for work quality because the majority of what they did needs to be fixed again. I would not describe that as quality. I regret having work done by Pezzello, and I would advise others to avoid them based on my long-term experience with the work they provided and did not stand behind.

Highly recommend Pat Pezzello and his team. Not once did I use them for a huge project, but twice…read more First project was an add a level (more like a level and a half). At the same time, a kitchen and a bathroom downstairs. The workmanship was impeccable. They worked clean and efficiently. Excellent communication. Creative ideas. I used their architect as well. He was awesome and I felt comfortable that they have worked together before, so they were, we all were, on the same page. Pat stands behind his work. He take pride in his work and his name and it's evident from the before and after pictures. A year, or so ago, we added a garage with a room above attached to our home. It could have looked like an afterthought. We're on a busy corner. But it's in style of our home and resembles a carriage house. Never a call back or a problem. Super professional. Exceptional quality work and value. More than fair price for what He puts forward. I had some hidden issues that he addressed, instead of covering up. Was fortunate to find them. I highly recommend to anyone. Extremely impressed. Can't say enough good about them. Excellent experiences, both times.

Stake renovations did a top-notch job in the gut and full renovation of my Brooklyn NY apartment…read more Michael from Stake Home Renovations was truly a god send - after a prior contractor ripped us off and had left our apartment a torn down disaster zone... Michael from Stake Home Renovations swooped in to the rescue! My husband and I did our homework this time around. We vetted various renovation companies and decided to go with Stake Renovations as they checked all the boxes. Off the bat Michael swept in with a detailed plan, a reasonable quote, timeline, and a great team of experts. Michael dedicated time to sit with me and discuss design alternatives for the apartment, that will best maximize on space. The Stake team executed the work as planned and with attention to every detail. Our home was in good hands with Michael, so much so that we decided to expand the scope to include our basement, with a new kitchen and sprucing up of our utility room. Of course they helped with design ideas and provided reasonable quote for the additional work - installing air mini-split units through the apartment and basement (the modern ceiling insert kind) - also replaced a huge large water heater tank with a space saving modern wall mount tankless water heater. This team is the real deal - they can do it all! The overall results were night and day - high quality and truly breathtaking, sleek, modern, and amazing. Our newly finished Brooklyn apartment looks so NYC high-end. Michael has fully gained our trust through his work and Stake renovations will remain our go-to for future projects in our Brooklyn building. Professional, responsive, organized, detailed, meticulous, modern... so very happy we finally found a gem of a team in NYC that we can trust to actually deliver amazing results! Highly recommended.

Stake Home Renovations did an outstanding job renovating my entire apartment, ensuring that every…read moreelement was custom-designed to perfection. Their attention to detail and dedication to creating a personalized space truly set them apart.