I recently had the opportunity to visit Nashville. First, there is nowhere with a better music scene than Nashville-nearly every watering-hole has at least 1 band if not two, and they’re all good. Really good. Good enough where it makes no difference if you like country music or not-when you’re there, you’ll like it. Driving around to visit various Country Music must-sees (including the very studio Elvis recorded about 1000 songs where one of our group played the same piano Elvis used to record with) I was struck most by the massive construction boom going on. There are new projects going up everywhere! There’s over 30 cranes in the Downtown area alone hoisting up new commercial buildings all over the place. The airport’s being rebuilt, and there’s massive numbers of hotels going up. And houses. Everywhere. Normally, I’d be appreciative of a building boom, but this is a bit much. First- there seems to have been no thought given at all to how such a massive buildup in such a short time will change traffic patterns, stress water and sewer facilities, etc. Second-there’s definitely no thought going into controlling or even influencing the architectural flavor of what’s being built. It’s obvious that the designs are coming from the same firms, drawing on the same influences, and none of them from Nashville. Most of the buildings I saw were what I’m starting to call “Box-on-Box” style…essentially the “contemporary” house that we see everywhere now. They’re typically designed with a smattering of wood on the outside, 3×6 panels of fiberboard, painted in various grays. Not only will these not hold up all that well over time, but they all look the same-charmless. The older, original homes of Nashville had clapboard siding and a kind of cool duel-pitched roof, low hung, down to a nice front porch. These have none of that at all-a lot of them are flat roofed 3 story monsters with no heart. Developers often are focused so much on the money aspect of their projects, they sometimes lose sight that what they create will be around for generations. We, in my industry, aren’t building disposable things. Our finished products last multiple lifetimes so I wish that the builders in a place like Nashville would reflect on what they’re doing a little, take a pause, and listen to a little Loretta Lynn or Willie Nelson before deciding to throw up another box-on-box monster. Nobody ever wrote a song like “Georgia on my Mind” standing on some deck of a glassed in house built to assuage the sensibilities of tourists from Rhode Island
Beware the Internet of Things
Beware the internet of things! Words that echo discussions I’ve been having with colleagues, customers and vendors. Appliance manufacturers, High Tech equipment manufacturers, and the media would have us all believe that amazing benefits await us if we’d simply connect everything we use to the internet so we can be monitored, watched, notified, and updated about everything from airline schedules to how much broccoli is in the refrigerator. However, as my high school econ teacher used to drill into us-There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. The cost of all these wonders of the modern world isn’t only money. Truthfully, the money to add a wifi chip to any appliance is immaterial today. Every appliance has a circuit-board, and adding a wifi chip adds a few pennies to that. But, every appliance then has to have a unique address for the wifi router to communicate with it. Without getting into the technical weeds, keeping multiple wireless pieces in stable communication with the router, each other, and the the internet isn’t all that easy-and the more pieces you add to a wireless network the harder it gets to keep each one in it’s proper lane. Some companies that specialize in having such pieces spread thru an installed ecosystem are very good at designing the protocols that keep them straight, but typically these companies sell their wares thru specialized dealers. Our AV vendor – www.k-integration.com – is one such dealer specializing in deploying systems like this designed and built by Crestron Electronics. Many firms are leaping into this space creating products that are priced for the public to deploy. Good luck with that. I can’t think of anything likely to be more frustrating than trying to troubleshoot wifi lightbulbs. Worse, companies like Maytag or Whirlpool that have leapt into the space have no real expertise in networking, internet protocols, online security etc., and have created hardware and firmware that ports into our phones via wifi networks without really considering the need or the security of doing so. Now, for sure, no Chinese operatives care what I have in my refrigerator or if I’m a glutton for microwave popcorn, but they MAY be interested in what’s on my computer or tablet, and an easy way into those is via my home network. One tiny chip inserted onto a circuit-board makes a convenient backdoor for such exploits. Lest you think such a thing is absurd- Apple, the US Government, Major US banks and others found exactly such a tiny chip installed into boards that were sold as part of server systems deployed by these organizations!! So aside from the added hassle of now having to do network troubleshooting for dishwashers and stoves, and the added nervousness of waiting to hear from one’s dryer or microwave, one has to consider that all the boards installed on these appliances come from overseas- and we have no idea what’s on them-
To Fantastic Customers
Last night we had the fortune to be named a finalist in the 2017 Cleveland Choice Awards competition in the Custom Home of the Year/Best Outdoor Living Space category for a custom pool and poolhouse environment project we finished in 2016. In talking to some of my colleagues regarding this, I reflected that, while the competition is for builders and is sponsored by the HBA of Greater Cleveland, there really should be recognition that without customers that want us to perform to these high levels, and want our creativity and expertise to be used on their behalf above and beyond the norm, none of the projects submitted would exist. It is these customers- a select few from the hundreds, if not thousands, that hired an HBA member-that wanted a project unique in design, complexity, difficulty, beauty, and, yes, cost that inspired their builder to excellence. It is the existence of these people that we rely on to energize us, to keep us engaged in an industry that is at times trying and unrelenting in its frustrations. So, for every category winner, there is a family, grinning ear to ear, that THEY received a builder’s best efforts and work. That they requested expertise be brought to bear, that training be utilized, and, in exchange, they were willing to reward those efforts. So, while an award may recognize the beauty of an end result, it fails miserably to recognize the family for granting the initial inspiration to reach, and the permission to excel. And, while the winner of each category sent one person up to claim the plaque, each plaque represents an industry-wide wealth of people and knowledge, spanning the generations, that sweated their way through these challenging projects. People unsung in daily life, underestimated by their white collar peers, that exhibit rare expertise in using materials and their hands to craft unique, one-of-a-kind projects that will be cherished for generations both by the people that hired them, and, later, by people that have no knowledge of who these craftsmen even were.
The project we submitted was a very difficult, large scale reworking of about 4 acres of a 6 acre parcel. My team and I were challenged by our clients to create privacy where there was none, and to create a resort-style oasis where there was a windswept hillside. From the initial design to the final touch up and caulking by our staff we, over about 8 months worked through ground issues, weather, logistical issues and the overall complexity of the project to bring it to completion. It’s a guess, but I believe over 200 people worked on this project over the 8 month period. Each phase of the project was orchestrated to dovetail with the phase before and the phase after. For just one example, the well was completed just in time to turn on the irrigation system to water in the transplanted trees, which otherwise would have died. A symphony of dirt, mud, greenery, and carpentry, culminating in a sculptural plastering of the pool. Finally, after all that, filling the pool with water was acceptance that we had completed things, and another family was soon to be grinning about their finished project. Topping it off was a literal symphony of sound-as a concert quality system sent music all around the new environment-bringing smiles to all our faces.
These projects are rare. Not only because of the cost, but also because of the rarity of those people that want to hire great people to perform a great work of lasting art for their families. Too often I hear about how expensive something is, or we are, and that there is someone less expensive that gets hired. That’s ok. For many, ok is good enough. For a few, they want excellence, and, for them, we pour ourselves into these projects and brave the challenges of our challenging industry to produce that awesome finished project. For them, ok is just a starting point, and for us, that’s the green light. The signal, to get the bit between our teeth and to craft something that will be unique and wonderful for this rare family. And, much later, when we’re far past done, if we’re lucky, as a collective pat on the back, our industry will possibly recognize our effort and reward us, 1 night each year. Oh, by the way, yes, we won.
Custom pool, poolhouse outdoor bar environment
Custom Pool, poolhouse, outdoor bar environment
Custom Pool, poolhouse outdoor bar environment
It’s How you Finish
We forget, today, that most things are still made by people, in one way or another. Most experiences we share are good or bad because of the people we are interacting with. Sure, many things are stamped out by automated robotic machines-maybe most things are. But, at some point in the stream from raw materials to your hand, people had to perform some action to change sand grains into an iPhone-it doesn’t happen all by machines. I’m fortunate enough to work in an industry where most of my finished product is hand crafted. Yes, many components may be milled or stamped by machines, but the preparation, construction, installation, finishing of everything is done by hand. By people. People we know, we talk to , we learn about. People with specific skillsets that make the difference between a customer bragging about their Myers Homes product/creation and not. These people are irreplaceable. Their skillsets may be mimicked by someone else, but not replaced. For those that read my last post in October (sorry, I’ve been distracted and haven’t written since then), you might remember that our architect Bob M. was fighting toe to toe with cancer. Today, devastatingly, he lost his fight. Well, he didn’t really lose -he finished his fight. He finished his fight, after giving every last ounce of effort and courage, every last ounce of everything he had to give, to see his children grow into great kids. He finished, undefeated.
I am now building (you can see our progress on our current projects page) his last home design. Someday his children will know the brilliant and wonderful designs he created for all of us to build or appreciate. Soaring, wild staircases (annoyingly impossible to build- well, almost impossible), swooping ceiling lines, window arrangements that created wondrous interplays of light and shadow, mundane but perfect arrangements of hallways and rooms to create living spaces that you never want to leave. Solutions to design problems that are elegant, simple, practical and buildable. Plansets that are dead nuts right on perfect. That make every one of his designs unique, special, wondrous and beautiful. That make them of a lasting value. That make them impossible not to want to keep living in for forever. His children, who already know how hard he fought to be with them, will someday know how people like me also appreciated his beauty as a person, and his genius in his chosen craft. We appreciate that we benefited from his fight to stay here for them, to be here for them, because he was still here for us too.. And we, like they, are devastated by his loss.
Bob is irreplaceable.
For anyone interested, I am fighting back against Cancer. Not only for Bob, but for everyone I know that is fighting this fight, which is too many people. I ride in the Velosano bike event to raise money to fund research to find cures. Every week I train so on the day of the event I can ride 100 miles as hard as I can, to fight through, in a small way, as hard as Bob fought. If you want, you can fight too (here’s a link: http://ccf.convio.net/goto/robertmyers )
Money=research=cures
When Beginnings are Endings
The process of building has evolved into an elaborate scavenger hunt. Having a family say “Let’s go!” begins a process that can take upwards of a year or more of time chasing around approvals, permits, labor, materials, and so on.At the very first, we need to have a plan to build from, so we turn to architects and engineers to collaborate with. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have been able to collaborate with great professionals. My architect, Bob M, is an artist with pen and paper. He’s one of the last of the hand drawing architects. Everyone in the industry now uses CAD, while Bob meticulously crafts his drawings by hand, just as our framers and trim carpenters will measure out each of their cuts when it’s their turn on the project. Recently, we submitted one of Bob’s projects to an Architectural Review Board in a local town. They were blown away at the weight of the lines, the thoughtful layouts, the attention to detail and the quality of the work. Known for typically being hard to get along with, one reviewer commented “Well, I can’t find a single thing wrong with this”. In my world, that’s about as high a praise as we get!
What you don’t see in his plans is Bob is sick. Bob’s been fighting cancer toe to toe for over a decade. Cancer’s taken internal body parts, his ability to eat, swallow, sleep, travel, meet people, or most of the normal parts of life we take for granted as casualties in his fight. Ground that Bob’s won in this fight, though, is he’s seen his kids grow up, his daughter go to college, lived a life with his family. While his body’s been whittled away to about half it’s optimal weight, his work, his mind, his artfulness remain in full force, and his drawings show those in full bloom. I don’t know if that review board will have the opportunity to review another set of plans drawn by Bob. I don’t know if I’ll get to collaborate on another house, show his plans to another family anxiously awaiting the start of their new home. Tomorrow isn’t promised to us in life, and Bob’s fought hard to make tomorrow possible. Tomorrow, though, is populated by the things we crafted, the people enjoying them, and the lives we’ve touched. Tomorrow is populated by our dreams, and, in the case of Bob and me, the homes we collaborated on for almost 2 decades. Today, I’m just happy he’s still here.
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