The studio and the crew.

Trained in landscape architecture, licensed in California, and still draws the first concept of every project by hand on trace paper. Mara walks every site herself and is the one who tells you when an idea will not work on your lot. She lives three blocks from the shop and keeps a test bed of thirty native plants behind it.

Ran crews for other builders for ten years before co-founding the studio in 2012. Luis prices every job, sets the schedule and walks the site with the foreman every morning before seven. If the concrete pour is at six, he is there at five thirty. He is also the person who says no to a change that would break the budget.

Writes every plant list and tags every plant at the nursery before it ships. Priya grew up in Almaden Valley, has a degree in plant science from Davis and can tell you which manzanita will live on your slope and which one will not. She runs the first-year care visits and the maintenance calendar.

Your one text thread during the build. Devon handles permits, inspections, the weekly photo update and the questions that come up at nine at night. Before this he managed commercial sites in San Jose and found he liked gardens better because people actually use them.

On your site every day from the first excavation to the last light aimed. Tomas has set stone for the studio since 2014 and trains every new builder we hire. The thyme between the steps on our Monte Sereno project was his idea, and it is now in about a third of our gardens.