Excerpt from
Los Gatos Weekly-Times
The best of Los Gatos 1999
Best architect
Gary SCHLOH
OUR PERENNIAL BEST ARCHITECT, Gary Schloh, begins with a long interview when he has a new client. From what he learns, he comes up with an idea to fit the client’s lifestyle and future needs.
Schloh, whose office is at 213 Bean Ave., has fed his instincts and rich pool of architectural knowledge with travel to such locales as Munich, Africa, Brazil, Chile, France, and Spain.
His work is not ‘Schloh’ style, because he is versatile enough to create everything from contemporary homes with walls of glass to small brick cottages. He has a standard and will only do quality work, says wife Erna. That doesn't confine him to ‘monied’ customers- he's drawn up plans for low-cost homes as well as big homes for Silicon Valley CEOs.
Erna says, “He really loves Los Gatos.”
Excerpt from
Los Gatos Weekly-Times
The best of Los Gatos 1999
Best architectural beauty
237 Glenridge Avenue
The newest kid on the block, 237 Glenridge Avenue, has already been named the best of the best by our readers for its architecture. Newly built by Mark and Barbara Beck, this impressively sized Craftsman-style home began as an addition and remodel, but problems discovered as work progressed brought the architect back to the town seeking permission for a demolition.
Craftsman houses saw their heyday between 1900 and 1910 as part of the larger Arts and Crafts movement. Homes in this style typically have large, attractive windows to let in light and trees and shrubs in proportion to the house and complementary to it in shape and size.
Most importantly, Craftsman homes are known for colors that reflect nature, such as dusty hues, muted colors, and earth tones. Some homes incorporate stonework into their architecture, as does this one. Gary Schloh, who our readers voted ‘best architect,’ was the architect for this project.
Photo caption
It's a brand-new house in a historic neighborhood, and readers say it's the Best Architectural Beauty in town. Built in the Craftsman style, this house at 237 Glenridge Ave. is still being landscaped, and architect Gary Schloh promises the fencing will be an integral aspect of the overall design.
The smallest house in Silicon Valley
Gary Schloh does build large, elegant mansions. However, he is also well known for more modest approaches. He has designed smaller houses of the highest caliber, and he recently won critical acclaim for the design of the smallest house on the smallest lot in Silicon Valley. You may visit The Smallest House to learn more of its design challenges as well as the exceptional results. An article taken from The Los Gatos Weekly-Times describes the house and its recent history in the following article by Clarence Cromwell.
Excerpt from
Los Gatos Weekly-Times
July 9, 1997
Local architect designs tiny house for county's tiniest lot
By Clarence Cromwell
The newest house on Nicholson Avenue has 13-foot cathedral ceilings, a walk-in closet and huge, wood-framed windows. Architect Gary Schloh made the place a monument to bigness--all 514 square feet of it.
The task was not easy, considering that this is the smallest house in Santa Clara County and is built on the smallest lot in the county, according to Schloh.
Those extra touches make the house feel sort of large on the inside, although the living room is about nine feet by nine feet, not counting the bay window that gives it a little more space and the kitchen nook that consists of a few feet of clearance between a countertop and the oven.
The house required rebuilding because a 1996 fire damaged the roof and interior walls so badly that the 76-year-old cottage had to be torn down. Schloh replaced the house with a model that looks the same on the outside, but with the changes that made the place feel spacious.
Schloh had originally planned to repair the roof and remodel, but he encountered a couple of problems. The new roof was too heavy for the walls, so the walls came down, too. Then the remaining floors and foundation turned out not to be fixed to the ground--they wouldn't hold up the new walls. Finally, Schloh ended up rebuilding from the ground up. He saved a lot of space by moving the water heater and a furnace from a downstairs bathroom to the attic, by adding a tiny laundry room to one side of the house and by raising the ceilings to give a feeling of space.
As for the yard, the house has only about three feet on each side, which are enclosed by sideyard fences. The front yard is four feet deep and bounded by a white picket fence. The rear wall of the house sits right on the rear property line.
The new owner, Louis Darosa, paid $292,000 for the house and the land, about $568 per square foot. Although the going rate for new construction is about $100 to $200 per square foot, Darosa said he was glad to get into Los Gatos for such a low price.
Schloh explained that the square-foot cost of tiny houses is usually high because they need the same number of kitchen appliances and plumbing fixtures as a large house. And Darosa's house has amenities such as granite and marble countertops, custom-made wood-frame windows and wooden siding.