Stoecker and Northway Architects, Inc.

Cynthia Munoz and John Chan of Stoecker & Northway provided extraordinary architectural and design service. My home is 100 years old and located in a historic neighborhood so there were many constraints, but Cynthia was able to work with the City planners to enable me to renovate the interior while maintaining the historic facade. There were many structural engineering challenges as well but again Cynthia found the specialists I needed and worked with them to successfully achieve my goals. The entire house was renovated--new heating, A/C, plumbing, wiring, cabinetry, roofing, under grounding of utilities, etc. It is a dream house now, thanks to Cynthia's attention to detail. She also has a wonderful sense of humor and was a joy to work with! You can see photos on the Stoecker and Northway website, I believe.

We worked with Cynthia Munoz on our house rebuild in Northern CA Bay Area and would highly recommend her and her team at Stoecker & Northway (S&N). We met Cynthia and Jim 2 years prior when we had initial remodeling thoughts and they were very consultative at our first meeting and gave initial advice as we had no idea where to start. It took us 2 years later to be ready to seriously select an architect firm and we screened several architects but S&N was the best fit and we are very happy with our decision. From the very beginning Cynthia was wonderful to work with. As working parents, we appreciated how Cynthia was always very flexible. While other architects were pitching their expertise yet very inflexible meeting times, Cynthia made it a point to accommodate times that worked for us. She even personally brought out toys and cookies at her office to make sure our 3 year daughter was entertained during our meetings. She took notes and remembered things from our first meeting (2 years ago!) She always listened very carefully and translated our preferences quickly into the design to confirm the updates. She integrated our ideas with hers to develop a design that we all are proud of. Cynthia really considered our practical needs and produced a home that is very attractive yet functional. We have gone to see a ton of open houses that were either rebuilds or remodels and they do not compare in design to a S&N home. It is very apparent that a S&N home is very thoughtfully designed with proper proportions and a layout that maximizes the space and just makes sense. Cynthia incorporated elements to make our home comfortable with natural air flow and maximizing natural light. She addressed our main concern regarding designing the home so that we don’t notice our “not-so-attractive” 3 story neighbor and we had our privacy. Cynthia was always very responsive and collaborative with everyone involved from city planner, engineers to our general contractor. Her positive working relationships led to a straightforward plan approval and allowed for our general contractor to quickly start the building process. We have been in the house now for over a month and still have folks stopping by on our front walkway admiring the home or driving slowly by to take pictures. If we ever have another opportunity to do a renovation and/or rebuild again, we would not hesitate to call Cynthia and the S&N team.

When we decided to remodel, first step was finding the right architect. We wanted someone smart and experienced with a strong design sense, who could be our representative with both the building department and our general contractor. We were incredibly fortunate to find that person in Alena of S&N. Going in, we had a lot of our own ideas. Alena was amazing in her ability to take those ideas and help refine and improve them, as well as adding creative, complementary suggestions of her own. She has a good sense of humor, a ton of patience and was quick to turn around drawings, helping create and maintain momentum. Alena's energy and personality made what could have been a tedious, tiring process quite reasonable. Alena recommended several general contractors, we interviewed them all and selected one. We were quite happy with our contractor: easy to work with, punctual, did high quality work and selected good subs. People complain that remodels take longer to complete than planned. Did ours? Yes, a little longer, but the delays were reasonable given a number of changes we made along the way. Thanks to Alena for recommending our contractor – we definitely wouldn’t have found him on our own. Our remodel was fairly comprehensive: we changed the room layout, added space, expanded our porch, gutted and created all new bathrooms, changed out all windows and doors and more. We are thrilled with the results and have had rave comments from friends and neighbors. Without a doubt, Alena's contribution was one of the biggest reasons for such an outstanding result. Without hesitation, we'd highly recommend Alena of S&N.

Stoecker and Northway designed and managed the construction of two houses for me: one house with water tower and guest house in Napa, CA and a fishing cabin near June Lake CA. Both construction projects, while very different in size and scale, are very successful, most comfortable, and meet the needs of our family in each location. Alena Campagna worked on both projects. She is very detailed oriented with excellent design suggestions. She is personable to work with and managed the cabin construction mostly on the internet.

We hired Stoecker and Northway to design a custom house for us in Napa, CA. John Northway and Alena Campagna were the design team, with Alena carrying out most of the project design, completion of working drawings and coordination with our builder, Ryan Associates. We specified a number of complex finishes, including stucco, slate, and a variety of woods. The design incorporated a number of separate structures-main house, guest house, garage and a recreational two story tower with office on the ground floor, relaxation/viewing room upstairs. Alena managed the triangulation among her firm, the builder and ourselves. The process took one year. All went smoothly and professionally. We have been in the house for eight years and are very happy. We suffered a significant earthquake approximately two years ago. None of the structures sustained any damage. I am delighted to recommend Stoecker and Northway.

S&N were a great choice. Our lead architect, Alena was fantastic. Friends told us horror story after horror story of their experience with architects. Our experience was the opposite. Alena listened and created a beautiful home for us. Now, 15 years, whenever we have a quick question or want to modify some aspect of the house Alena is there with efficient answers and always available to help. In every instance they were at or BELOW budget. No surprises.

We were introduced to architect Cynthia Munoz by a former work colleague when we began our home remodeling project in 2012. Having been in our home for 20 years, we were interested in redefining the space in a more livable, modern, way that included larger bedrooms, more storage space, and more light - without expanding the footprint. Redesigning our home presented many challenges since it is on a hill, and building up or down would create significant building costs. Of the five architects we interviewed, Cynthia was the only one who openly shared creative ideas and solutions on her first "get acquainted" visit. As a working professional couple, we could not always respond to her in a timely manner, so her patience was greatly appreciated over the course of the year! She actively listened to and embraced our "living" preferences and offered great, practical ideas to our numerous challenges. The process of working with her was fantastic from the get go. Clearly, she understood design from both an artistic and practical standpoint. She was also very knowledegable about local building codes. After much back-in-forth, we ultimately went from three tiny bedrooms, to two, larger bedrooms joined by a jack-n-jill bath. She also found a way to enlarge our hallway bathroom - which was rather miraculous. We love our new, redesigned home, and feel Cynthia's expertise laid the important foundation for modernizing our living space.

We hired Cynthia and John to help us remodel/extend on our existing home to add significant more square footage including a second story, bring in essential light into our living space, and to redo our front facade and entrance. We are so glad we did! Not only did we mesh well with their sensibilities, they meshed our ideas with their design sense and created spaces that integrated seamlessly and beautifully with our existing home. They were prompt, collaborative, attentive to detail, and extremely easy and fun to work with. In fact, they even recommended a contractor whom we hired and every thing went very smoothly. We host regularly and are always receiving compliments regarding the architecture, use of natural light, and organic flow to the house. We are very happy with our final product and would highly recommend Cynthia and her team.

Jim Stoecker of Stoecker and Northway Architects is best in class. He has an incredible ability to understand customer needs while provide creative solutions that we never would have thought of. We were rebuilding our house on a sub-standard lot in Menlo Park and efficient use of space was key. Our home turned out better than we could have imagined thanks to Jim listening to our needs. His use of natural light, open concepts and custom touches made the final product an inviting and comfortable space for our family and friends. We would not hesitate to use Jim in the future and highly recommend him! To view our project, please visit: http://www.stoeckerandnorthway.com/rr/rr07790/rr07790-03.html

We worked with Jim Stoecker on a new home project. Jim was excellent in all aspects - knowing our town and county code and process, conceptual design and layout, detailed floor-plan, finish materials, cost and how to achieve the desired aesthetic within budget, blend with outdoors and landscape, recommendations for various trades people to work with. Jim is creative and very detailed oriented, through our conversations he really got to know us and both the functional goals we wanted in the home as well as the look and feel we were trying to achieve. We feel we totally achieved the form and function we envisioned before we undertook the project with Jim. A home design and construction project is a significant and at times emotional undertaking. Having people on your team who you trust is important. Jim really listens and cares about his clients. He stayed close to the project once construction was underway and all the way to completion to ensure the vision was achieved. There was no finger pointing between the architect and general contractor. We can't recommend Stoecker and Northway highly enough. If we do another project there is no doubt we will use them again.

We engaged Stoecker and Northway for work on a whole home remodel. The project included moving several walls, and completely gutting and rebuilding 2 bathrooms, the kitchen, and 3 closets. Jim Stoecker provided valuable insights on the project requirements, timelines, and a general sense of the expenses to expect. He also helped us identify ways to create more space within the existing footprint of the house, allowing us to create a small laundry room in the house (previously in the detached garage). We were thrilled with all aspects of working with Jim, and would strongly recommend him to anyone with large construction projects.