The residence was a three
story, two family home. The new owners purchased it to restore it to a
single family home….summer home. While the new owners were born and
raised in the community, they reside overseas. The total square footage
of the home when they purchased it was 7,037 square feet. After the
remodel it is now 8,848 square feet. With its own computer, touch screen
lighting controls, satellite and cable connections, most of the house
can be controlled from a laptop and modem from anywhere in the world.
Here’s a heck of a story:
The entire renovation needed to be completed in 8 months so the owners
could use the home in the summer of 2000. During that time the owners
visited the site only three times. The architect would take digital
pictures of the work, Email it to the owners, get a response, and the
next day they would change the work or move ahead.
This timeframe was during one of the region’s hottest construction
booms, with all trades already over-committed. They often used multiple
contractors for the same trade, for instance they had three different
framing crews on the site at the same time, two painting crews and four
interior trim crews. This required the development of a team concept in
which each trade contractor needed to respect the other’s work as a part
of the same team.
The company also had a team of four carpenters they used as
troubleshooters, who would be thrown into any portion of the project
that was falling behind or needed to be changed.
At some points the architect had his entire staff of 14 working on the
project, and much of the work needed to be started before they had all
the details and information. On many days they would receive structural
or trim details each hour.
During the final days of construction, approximately 80 vehicles were
parked (legally) around the neighborhood. They received a summons and a
stop-work order from the Village. Rather than miss the deadline…FOR
WHICH THERE WAS NO CONTRACTUAL PENALTY, they ignored the stop-work
order, and were fined.
The project was a tremendous success, and the sod was being installed
just as the movers were unloading furniture. The clients were thrilled
and Stokkers & Company have teamed up with the architect for another
large project.
