EASA Architecture

Ellis/EASA are awesome. He did a major renovation of a kitchen/family room, but it's much more than that - new doors and windows, interior flow, HVAC, structure. A lot of stuff. Ellis is super thoughtful about design and attention to detail. Our contractor has said most architect drawings are off by 6-12", but Ellis are spot on accurate. He invests in people who get the job right - surveyors, structural engineers, etc. Importantly, he also builds in Burlingame/San Mateo/Millbrae, and I can't stress enough how important it is to have someone who knows the specific city departments and codes. The Peninsula is a hot mess for residential construction, but Ellis gets it right. Strong attention to detail, hears client input and responds to it. Downside - Ellis probably won't be working forever, so when he retires at some point, at that point, no more Ellis-designed renovations!

We worked with EASA recently to identify expansion, and ADU options at our home in San Mateo. It was a very complicated task to sort out the options with city codes, set backs, site topography, etc., but EASA Architecture clearly had the domain expertise to help us. Possibly one of the greatest qualities of EASA is listening closely to our desires and ideas and making sure that the end product is consistent with our needs and vision. EASA was patient with long list of questions, was easy to work with, and extremely thorough in diligently working through the many, many possibilities. We highly recommend Ellis and David at EASA Architecture if you are looking for highly qualified and experienced professionals that will deliver exactly what you are asking for, and more!

Ellis was a pleasure to work with—collaborative, creative and thoughtful. He was undaunted by the challenges our remodel presented—many of them the result of original design flaws compounded by ill-considered additions. Ellis tackled our project with enthusiasm and diligence, and the resulting design transformed our house from haphazard seventies mismatch to an elegantly rustic, and beautifully cohesive, residence. We are also grateful for the excellent working relationship Ellis maintains with the other professionals essential to a remodeling project—town officials, engineers and our contractor. We would work with him again in a heartbeat.

EASA was truly a pleasure to work with. Our remodel was particularly challenging due to the historic nature of our house and the obstacles that come with that. However, our architect did not only navigate the permit process with ease but also designed and obtained a permit for ADU for the property. Additionally, Ellis really listened to our needs – even when we changed the plans a few times – and created a beautiful design with excellent use of space. Every suggestion he gave was very thoughtful, tasteful, and an answer to every challenge we faced – spatially, structurally, and aesthetically. We have worked with other architects in the past and would highly recommend EASA to anyone who is looking to remodel, no matter what challenges lie ahead.

We have loved working with Ellis. His designs are beautiful, he is personable and easy to work with and his team is great. We hired him to design an extension to our house with a vaulted ceiling and new kitchen. He has provided us with a great design and been open to our ideas and helpful in guiding us through the process. His cost estimates have been solid and recommended a great contractor. We highly recommend Ellis!

EASA helped us to design an addition to our existing home that elegantly maximized square footage, ceiling height and our other desired parameters to the exact limits of our local code. It took creativity in both design development and implementation to do this and we ended up with a product that perfectly met our needs, blended seamlessly with our existing home and looked great.

We had a very good experience working with EASA Architecture on our garage/workshop remodel project this year. Ellis and his partner were the consummate professionals and prepared very detailed plans that flew through the permitting process (which I hear is a challenge in Redwood City). They worked seamlessly with our contractor and the engineering group they brought in, and completed the project plans quickly and efficiently. The construction is nearly done and so far has exceeded our expectation. I would highly recommend EASA for the next project at your home!

Ellis and team did a very thoughtful re-imaging of our 100 year old home in Atherton. The result is wonderful to live in, open and family oriented, while organically consistent with the original home.

It was a pleasure working with Ellis and his team for the remodel of my house. Ellis was very detailed oriented and listened to my needs and concerns. I am very happy with the outcome. Thank you, EASA Architecture!

There is no substitute for experience or EASA Architecture! My name is Gabriel, a professional in the construction industry, and I would like to share my experience with EASA architecture. When the time came to hire an architect and home design team, I found Ellis quite by accident. He was at my local city planning commission meeting advocating an impressive project he was working on in my own neighborhood. I first noticed the very well done renderings and conceptual drawings he was showcasing. Later in the meeting, I had found out that the city building department had already recommended the approval of the project by the planning commission. No doubt because of the quality and complete materials he had submitted well in advance to the city and prior to the meeting. I can just remember mostly thinking that Ellis was very prepared. My project seemed complex and in some ways impossible until EASA got involved. The team at EASA immediately went to work on my project goals and I was soon presented with a design that filled in all the blanks. Suddenly all of my visions my ideas were very neatly and professionally drawn in front of me in amazing detail. I only wish I had more homes to develop with EASA. I wish them and all of you the best of luck with your goals.

We did a massive remodel/renovation on our 1940's ranch style home. Ellis was wonderful to work with! He listened to all of our requests/wants, while making helpful recommendations based off his expertise. He was responsive with communication and worked well with our contractor. He was very professional and was able to meet our deadlines within our budget. We highly recommend EASA Architecture.

We worked with Ellis and his associate, David, who helped us create a vision for our home that we had never even imagined! They showed us thoughtful presentations of unexpected options and functional updates. Ultimately, we went with Ellis's more traditional suggestions, which is where he hits it out of the ballpark. If you are looking for quintessential Bay Area class, Ellis is your architect.

Great architect and great company to work with. Work involved converting master bedroom to grand looking with raising tile roof., and also pushing out 2nd floor walls to convert 3 BdR/2B to 3Bd/3B. Ellis has creative ideas, did solid quality work and design, very reliable and is very knowledgeable with local building codes and regulations resulting in getting project done ON TIME. Very satisfy with his and his company works.

I had a very challenging lot, only 3,000 square feet. I could only build a home of a little more than a thousand square feet. Within this 1,000 square feet we had to fit 2 bedrooms, including a master bedroom suite, 2 baths, living and dining areas and a kitchen, Through skillful design, including 10 foot ceilings, lots of windows and light, plus very quality materials, a home that felt spacious for it's size was created. With a 25 foot wide lot, the exterior was also a big challenge. This challenge was overcome with beautiful materials, including redwood siding, a metal roof, a custom contemporary garage and front door, and elegant lighting. There were critics who said it couldn't be done, but Ellis did it. I must also not forget the contributions of my contractor, Patrick Fellows, and my designer Sherrie Chow.

Ellis is very detail oriented, thorough, and has an excellent eye. He is knowledgeable about all aspects of the design and construction process.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with Ellis and his team on the design for my new home. The site was difficult, the regulations complex, and the review process intense. Ellis came through it all with a great design and made it look easy! Thank you, EASA Architecture, I’d be happy to work with you again.

Ellis is an excellent architect. He produced plans to enlarge and modernize a kitchen in a 100 yo craftsman in Palo Alto, and to add a family room and redirect traffic flow in the rear of home. We are pleased in every way with his work. Is best skill is the ability to visualize through rapid sketches alternative floor plans and elevations. He conducts this exercise sitting next to you and works quickly to bring in your own and his ideas to the experience. Truly a thrilling exercise. His work product is also first rate as two other architects passed fine judgement on his plans. I would use Ellis again since he is the most skilled professional that I know

It has been a great pleasure to work with EASA Architecture over the past 6 months on a proposed plan for our home in Hillsborough, California. There were a LOT of challenges and quirks that required a lot of shifts and calculations. Ellis Schoichet and his team at EASA were masterful in developing solutions which enabled us to arrive at an elegant design for potential buyers. While the whole concept of a rebuild was somewhat difficult to promote, the design EASA created was completely sensible, achievable and ambitious. Incredibly, they designed a beautiful house that nicely conformed to the confines of the allowable FAR despite a lot of code restrictions, easements and setbacks. We are grateful to EASA for their commitment and responsiveness to us as clients. You were great to work with and incredibly flexible under challenging timelines. I highly recommend EASA to anyone looking to engage very astute and technical architects with solid architectural history backgrounds and a keen attention to detail.

EASA Architecture - Ellis has always been a pleasure to work with. As a general contractor we rely on great drawings and details to complete projects and define spaces for clients. EASA performs!

The team did a wonderful job working on the drawings for our bathroom remodel. Often times you see inspiration come out when faced with a number of physical constraints in the space. This was the case with our project. The size of the bathrooms we remodeled were constrained, but Ellis and David did a fantastic job helping maximize the functional area and made both bathrooms feel larger, more open, and more functional. The methodology they used was very much appreciated; it allowed for rapid design iterations to explore different options. Once we narrowed down our choices and finalized our decisions they quickly followed with detailed drawings for the contractor to execute against. They proved to be a great team to work with. I plan to call on them again for my next project!

We couldn't be happier with the process and results of our work with EASA Architecture in our recent bathroom remodel. Since we were working with a small space (and a limited budget), Lisa and Ellis took the time to understand our needs, and then presented us with a variety of design options, offering creative solutions that matched our tastes, while making the best use of limited space. They were especially helpful in coming up with a color scheme that integrated the bathroom elements, and blended with the qualities of the adjoining room. Lisa then worked closely with us in choosing tile, paint, fixtures, window treatment, cabinetry, etc. so that they all worked together. We are completely happy with our new bathroom, and would recommend Lisa and Ellis and EASA Architecture for any design or architectural work. [Previously, we worked with EASA Architecture in a major kitchen remodel, and our satisfaction with their work at that time made them our obvious choice for this recent project.]

After an extensive search for an Architect in and around San Mateo area for our renovation project, I interviewed and hired EASA for our project. Ellis was very knowledgeable ,insightful, honest, and listened to our needs and understood them and helped us immensely to achieve our goals. It was a pleasure working with Ellis and his very professional staff.

Ellis did an excellent job as the architect for our home remodel. It was challenging due to our small lot size and demanding City of Palo Alto requirements. We added a new study, an utility room, remodeled the kitchen, replaced the hardwood floors, and finished the existing garage and basement. His attention to detail paid off time after time resulting in very few plan check comments from the City. His design creativity allowed us to maximize the potential of our home. He was able to meet deadlines and worked very well with the contractor and other professionals involved in the remodel. He was able to navigate the Homeowners Exemption process in Palo Alto successfully. We strongly recommend him.

My wife and I hired Ellis for our whole house rebuild project in the summer of 2010 and spent the next year thoroughly reimagining it with him. He immediately impressed us with the detail of his proposal and that attention to detail remained throughout the project. With his help we turned a one story mid-century ranch into a tri-level Roman/Mediterranean villa with an interesting mix of tile hip roof and flat roofs for solar and wrap-around decking. For the main floor we kept the original 3-bedroom layout, so instead of randomly spreading living and bedroom space between two floors as many larger houses do, the daily living and traffic flow stays on the main floor. The auxiliary floors have intentionally separate, more isolated purposes: a lower level (walkout basement) recreation/hobby room, and an upper story office with awesome bay views that can also function as a second guest suite. Ellis had lots of great ideas for arranging the stairs and entryways to maximize the views and space usage. These ideas ensured that the finished house layout "makes total sense" -- without any odd spaces lacking in purpose. We felt working with Ellis was a true creative collaboration, with about half the final design ideas coming from us and half from him. The Burlingame design review board, who can be a notoriously tough nut to crack, loved Ellis' design from the beginning and remarked that it just kept getting better when we went back with further tweaks. There were no approval delays thanks to the careful detail in Ellis' submissions. Ellis is also very diligent about hunting down all the arcane codes and regulations that can constrain your design choices, and working through these with you. We've now been living in our new house for six months. Not only do we thoroughly enjoy it every day, but without fail our friends and visitors find it fabulous. The triple arch windows and high ceiling in the living room provide a truly grand entrance, and the spacious kitchen/family room adjoining the pool deck flows perfectly every time we have a party. One tip if you choose to work with Ellis (also relevant to the design process with any architect): ask him to stop and consult you if a particular area he's working through (e.g. structural or mechanical/electrical/plumbing) starts to become difficult and time consuming. For us this was usually an opportunity to rethink the design in a better way from a higher level that can ultimately reduce architecture and construction costs. For instance, when construction codes created difficulties routing the heating ducts in our available crawl space, radiant heat emerged as a competitive solution given how extensive the remodel had become.

As an interior designer myself, I work with a lot of architects. I highly recommend EASA architecture. Ellis was extremely professional, talented and easy to work with. He created plans for our ranch house remodel, incorporating our ideas with his expertise. He came up with great solutions, and his plans were extremely well done, and done on time.

We selected Ellis to design the addition to our Spanish colonial house because of the architects we interviewed, he seemed the most attentive to detail. That showed in the results. He also was a very good listener, and he did a good job abstracting common features from pictures we showed him. His first design nailed it. We just pointed at it and said, "yep, that's right." It worked as well for the design review commission, who were notoriously tough, but spent about five minutes, then said "very good design" and sent us on our way. The stair tower was one particularly good feature, not least because it he conceived of it as a way to break up what might otherwise have seemed like an overlong exterior facade. A practical problem of getting heating ducts to the right place despite insufficient between-floor space ended up being a long, and wonderful window seat. A few years later when we replaced kitchen cabinets and added a library, we thought we could handle it between ourselves and the cabinet maker, but we found we weren't getting the details right. We called Ellis, and he nailed it again.

We hired Ellis in 2001 to help remodel our 100-year old house on the San Mateo Coast, and in the process, we found a true professional, and we made a great friend. We were looking for someone with style and an appreciation of old houses, who could also help us navigate a complex set of needs and constraints. Over a 5 year period of design, approval, permitting, and construction, he created a dream house full of details that illustrate our whimsical style, and we had fun the entire way. His attention to detail is epic; he’s a prolific note-taker, and he left no idea or concern unconsidered. Every meeting focused on what we wanted out of the house, how we would use it, and how we would get it built. He took care of us through the permitting process of three separate government agencies, and we impressed them at every turn. No one ever had a better steward. Our house is not particularly large, or lavish, but it has such a sense of style and comfort that most guests, when they come inside for the first time, say, “Wow, you have a beautiful home.” In 2008, our beloved 1930’s cabin at Pinecrest Lake burned to the ground. Again, Ellis designed a replacement that pays homage to the original structure but is modern in every way, and once again, he saw us through a tortuous approval process. Ellis is our architect. Should we ever build anything again, he will design it. He should design yours, too.

We hired Ellis to design our house for a major remodel. He did a great job of working with us to come up with a design that met our needs and added several creative ideas of his own to make the design better. I was very happy with the time that he took to make sure that we got to the design we were happiest with. From the design, Ellis created the architectural drawings, assisted us in finding a general contractor and worked closely with the contractor (even though we chose one he had not worked with previously) to ensure that they followed his design and to answer any questions that they had during construction. Overall we found Ellis to be a very competent and friendly architect and we are very happy with the end result of his design.

After a disastrous fire to our guest house, we sought out an architect who could recreate and update a 75-year old rustic masterpiece. We worked closely, frequently consulting by on-site visits, by phone and by email. Since the house was originally built, the building codes have evolved substantial changes that had to be worked in and hidden as much as possible to retain the original feel of the structure. We have recommend EASA Architecture to neighbors who also are very pleased.

Ellis Schoichet was the perfect match for us. We gutted our 3000+ ft home down to the studs and rebuilt according to his outstanding design. The planning process took 12 months for us. He is approachable, professional, highly ethical, and a genius when it came to incorporating all of our desires into the space. His attention to detail and depth of knowledge served us well. We remodeled in 2005, and I still walk into my house every day after work and think "I can't believe I live here!". I highly recommend EASA Architecture. Thanks Ellis!

EASE Architecture (Ellis Schoichet) did a terrific job on our substantial remodel (essentially a "tear-down"), turning our California rancher to a Spanish Revival. He exceeded our expectations on all aspects of the process. We highly recommend EASE/Ellis.

Several years ago, we hired Ellis Schoichett of EASA Architecture to draw up plans for a whole house remodel of our smaller, older home. Best decision ever! Twelve years later, and I still get a thrill walking through the front door. He turned our house into a home and the home he created for us, has given us years of pleasure. I recommend him highly.