Intentional homes,

lasting craft.

From the ground up.

Living room with large windows, beige sofas, colorful pillows, a fireplace, and built-in shelving, with a view of outside greenery.

Most clients are surprised to learn that Studio Garrison designs ten to fourteen custom homes every year. Not because we are quiet about the work, but because the work speaks clearly enough on its own.

For over fifteen years we have partnered with the most respected luxury home builders in the Pacific Northwest, the Coachella Valley, and premier resort communities throughout the West. These are relationships built on a shared standard: that a custom home should be resolved at every level, from the logic of its floor plan to the quality of its construction documents, before a single foundation is poured.

The Process

  • Three men standing in a grassy field, having a conversation, with trees and cloudy sky in the background.

    Site Review & Consultation

    Every great home begins with understanding the ground it stands on.

    Before a single line is drawn, we invest time in understanding your site. Topography, solar orientation, prevailing views, climate conditions, zoning requirements, and the relationship between the land and how you intend to live on it. This initial consultation is where assumptions get replaced by insight, and where the decisions that will define your home for decades first take shape.

    We come to this conversation prepared, curious, and direct. Our goal is to identify both the opportunities your site offers and the constraints it presents, so that the design process that follows is grounded in reality from the start.

  • Two men look at a computer screen displaying 3D architectural designs in an office setting.

    Design Phase

    Your vision, made specific.

    The design phase is where intention becomes form. Working closely with you through a series of collaborative reviews, we develop and refine concepts that reflect your lifestyle, your aesthetic sensibility, and the unique conditions of your site. No two homes begin from the same place, and none arrive at the same outcome.

    We move through this phase with care and with candor, presenting ideas clearly, incorporating feedback thoughtfully, and refining until the design is exactly right. The result is not a home that resembles something you admired in a magazine. It is a home that could only belong to you.

  • Blueprint drawing of a bike shop sink elevation with dimensions, sink, faucet, pegboard, and storage cabinets.

    Construction Documents

    Precision on paper protects your investment in the field.

    A beautifully conceived home can be compromised by documents that are incomplete, uncoordinated, or ambiguous. Studio Garrison's construction documents are recognized among builders as among the most thorough and well-resolved in the industry. Every detail drawn. Every specification considered. Every trade coordinated before the first question is asked in the field.

    This phase is where the design becomes buildable, and where the investment in thorough documentation pays for itself many times over in reduced change orders, fewer delays, and a finished home that reflects what was designed.

  • A backyard patio with a wooden dining table and chairs, surrounded by small plants and trees, with a house featuring a mix of beige and gray exterior walls in the background.

    Professional Referrals

    The right team makes the difference.

    A custom home at this level requires more than a great designer. It requires a team of professionals who share the same standard and communicate with the same clarity. Over fifteen years, we have built working relationships with the most capable builders, structural engineers, civil engineers, and specialty consultants in the markets we serve.

    When a project calls for it, we make introductions with confidence. These are not referrals made casually. They are recommendations built on shared experience and a mutual commitment to delivering projects that perform at the highest level.

  • Construction site for building foundation, with wooden formwork and workers, in a rural area with green fields, trees, and a house in the background.

    Permit Application

    The design doesn't end when construction begins.

    The difference between a home that is built well and one that is built exactly right often comes down to whether the designer stays engaged through construction. Studio Garrison provides construction administration as a core part of our custom home service, not an optional add-on.

    We review submittals, respond to field questions, conduct site visits, and make real-time decisions that protect both the quality of the design and the efficiency of the build. Our presence during construction consistently reduces costs, shortens timelines, and ensures the finished home reflects the standard established at the design table. For builders who work at this level, our involvement is not a complication. It is an asset.

  • Four people standing outside at a construction site, with insulation panels and scaffolding, engaging in a discussion about building a wall.

    Construction Administration

    Your eyes and ears on the site.

    By hiring Studio Garrison, you'll not only receive exceptional design services, but also Construction Administration, a critical component that ensures your home is built according to plan. This invaluable service provides oversight and quality control during the pricing phase and construction phases. Properly executed Construction Administration can significantly lower cost and shorten construction time. The benefits of having your architectural designer on site, working closely with the contractor, far outweigh the costs, providing you with peace of mind and a smoother construction process.

  • “The team at Studio Garrison was incredible from top to bottom. They helped us design our house from the ground up and furnished it. They worked seamlessly with the architect and general contractor (GC). The plans they provided the GC were incredibly detailed. They leave no stone unturned.  We will use them again for any project requiring their services. Thanks Studio Garrison!”

    — J. Lowrie


Frequently Asked Questions


A custom home is one of the most significant things you'll ever create. The questions below are the ones we hear at the beginning of almost every CHD project — answered honestly, so you know exactly what designing with Studio Garrison looks like before we begin.

  • Most custom homes are designed from the outside in, the building envelope is established first, and the rooms are fitted into the structure that results. At Studio Garrison, we work in the opposite direction. We begin by understanding how you actually live: how your mornings run, how your family moves through a house, where you want light and when, what a Sunday afternoon looks like in your home. The building is then designed to make all of that possible, not the other way around. The result is a home that feels effortless to live in, because it was built for the way you live.

  • Custom Home Design is the full design of a home, from the building itself to every interior space, created entirely around one household and one vision. There are no standard floor plans, no inherited layouts, no compromises carried over from the last project. At Studio Garrison, our CHD team handles building design and interior design as a single, connected process. What you end up with isn't a house that's been personalized. It's a home that was yours from the very first line on the page.

  • We don't separate them, and that's the point. When building design and interior design are handled by different teams, decisions get made in sequence that should be made together. A ceiling height that would have transformed a room gets fixed before the interior conversation starts. A view that could have been framed perfectly gets missed. At Studio Garrison, our CHD team thinks about the building and the interior simultaneously, so every structural decision serves the experience of living in the space, and every interior choice is considered in the context of the building around it.

  • We begin with discovery, a deep conversation about how you live, what you love, what hasn't worked in homes you've lived in before, and what you're hoping this home will make possible. From there, we move into concept design, where the spatial ideas take shape, and we begin to see how the building and the interior relate. Design development refines every detail, materials, light, proportion, and how rooms connect and feel. Finally, construction documentation and administration ensure that what we've designed together is what actually gets built. You're involved in every meaningful decision. We handle everything in between.

  • Because we start with you, not with a mood board. Trends are useful reference points, but they're not a design brief. Early in our process, we spend real time understanding how you live, what draws you to certain spaces, and what you want to feel when you walk through your front door. The design that emerges from that conversation will be current, because we're experienced designers who pay attention to where things are going, but it will be yours first. A home designed around your life won't feel dated in ten years, because it was never trying to be fashionable. It was trying to be right for you.

  • We manage the full project team on your behalf. For anything outside our direct scope, structural consultants, civil engineers, landscape designers, we bring in people we trust and have worked with before, who understand how we design and communicate in the same language. You don't need to coordinate between consultants or translate between disciplines. That's our role. Your role is to make the decisions that shape your home. We make sure those decisions are well-informed and that everything else runs smoothly around them.

  • For a fully custom home, the design phase alone typically runs eight to fourteen months, longer for more complex projects or those requiring extensive approvals and permitting. Construction on a significant custom home generally takes twelve to twenty-four months from groundbreaking to completion. We're transparent about this from the start, because a home designed around your life deserves the time that takes. The process isn't something to be rushed through, it's where the most important decisions get made.

  • The first step is a conversation, and it's one we look forward to. We'll ask you about your life before we ask you about your house: how you spend your time at home, what's worked in the spaces you've lived in, and what you've always wished were different. From that conversation, we'll have a sense of whether we're the right team for your project, and you'll have a sense of how we think. Reach out through our contact page, and we'll be in touch within one business day.