Creole Design

Sam and his team worked hard to create the unique and interesting floor plan that I wanted, were responsive to my questions and came up with creative solutions to the requests that I made. I highly recommend Creole Design.

Creole Design treats your project like their personal home. I was very pleased with our overall experience, and cannot say enough good things about their entire team!

I use Creole Design for my spec homes as well as for my custom clients. Their designs are beautiful and efficient. Creole team is very easy to work with. Working with this firm is a pleasure!

My husband and I highly recommend the professional architectural design services of Creole, headed by Sam Gianukos. Sam has decades of experience both with building as well as design so he truly understands the ENTIRE home building process--beginning with an idea sketched on tracing paper to a completed home and all the work in between. We initially met Sam through a builder and ultimately selected him to create the architectural plans for our new Southern/New Orleans style home. He was very accessible, easy to work with and extremely knowledgeable about the type of home we wanted to build. He has a superb eye for detail, listens well and is very patient...we had never built a new home before! Because of that, he not only created our design plans, but offered valuable guidance along the way regarding the construction process, decisions to be made, and what to expect. We felt that he was very invested in our project and didn't disappear after his portion was completed (creation of the drawings). Sam made several visits to our job site and was available and wiling to meet with the builder when necessary over the course of our 16 month-long project. It is clear that Sam really enjoys designing and takes pride in his work -- rightfully so! In the early stages of our project, Sam drove us around the historical Houston Heights neighborhood where he does a lot of work and showed us many of his previous projects (designs, new-builds and remodels/additions). He has made significant contributions to this beautiful, historic area of Houston by preserving the architectural integrity of "yesteryear" with his designs. We moved into our new house the summer of 2012 and couldn't be happier! Sam is abundantly talented and an all-around great guy; we learned so much from him.

Creole Design does great work especially incorporating your ideas while retaining the period design. Sam is terrific to work with in designing your home.

Creole Design helped my husband and I renovate and redesign an old 1925 home in an historic district a year ago. We interviewed various architects and design firms specializing in renovations because we needed to keep the charm and integrity of the old home, but needed to expand and reconfigure space to accommodate our family of 6. Sam Gianukos and his team were able to do both while staying within our budget. He listened intently to our needs and then was able to expand and give us even more than we had imagined. His creativity and attention to detail created a design that is both functional for our family but also beautiful. With his expertise, we have a home that feels old, but has all that a new home can offer. It is impossible to see where the old house ended and where we added the extra space that was necessary for our family. It is a seamless design. In addition, Mr. Gianukos was available to us during the entire construction process giving us great peace of mind. We would highly recommend Creole Design for new or renovation design. We feel very proud when neighbors say our home has become the gem on the block! We attribute that to Creole Design!

After admiring many homes in the Houston Heights area, I found a common thread - Sam Gianukos was the architect for each home. These homes had been constructed by a variety of builders including Sam and had been built over a time period spanning several decades. All of Sam's projects stood the test of time well due to their attention to period detail, their sense of classic design, scale and proportion. I met with Sam to begin the design process but was uncertain as to exact style home I wanted to build. Sam assigned homework - "take these books and identify the homes and characteristics you like." I identified many homes and could not make sense of my choices. Sam looked at the selections and immediately focused on common characteristics. I was then able to quickly decide on a style and design. Sam has been supportive throughout the entire design, approval, construction bidding and the construction process. His knowledge and experience including construction and procurement have been invaluable. Sam is passionate about his work and a man of his word.

Sam has been a big help with my project. I am a spec builder that used Creole Design on my last project and are in the mist of designing my current project. The team is very talented, punctual, thorough & a real pleasure to work with!

The short version of my review is: Sam is FANTASTIC, and I highly recommend him to everyone I know! The long version is.... I currently live in an old 2 bed / 2 bath 1920 Heights cottage. While preparing for the birth of our first baby, we realized that we would need more space before we had a second (at least one modern-sized closet would be nice!). Alas, our new home search began. I wanted to stay in the Heights, and after actively looking for >1 year, I realized that there was nothing on the market that would fit our growing family's needs - in our price range, that is. I eventually found a 1920 bungalow on Harvard Street in need of some serious TLC. I interviewed a few designers and decided to go with Creole. Sam (the owner) came and walked the space with us and had some great ideas already (this was all before we chose him as our designer or paid him one cent). I also liked that he lives in an old 1915 Woodland Heights home and has been in the Heights since the 1970's. He used to do combo design/build, but now focuses on just designing. He has done hundreds, if not thousands?, of home designs - both rehabilitation/additions and new construction. Over the years, I have seen his signs all over the neighborhood, and I always liked the look of his properties and his attention to historic detail vs other neighborhood designers. I also liked that he charges based on a fixed fee (per framed foot), when other designers charge by the hour. With all of the unknown costs associated with a 1920 rehabilitation, having as many costs certain vs unknown was very important to me!! Also, because Sam has been on both the design and construction side of things with these old houses for so long, he is very aware of how much building things actually costs. Therefore, it was very comforting to me that while going through the design process, if I wanted to add something, he could tell me if that was something expensive or not a big deal. As someone who's never done this before, at least I knew with eyes-wide-open what I was designing! How the process works: You do all of the design sessions with Sam - in his cool, old house, interactively sketching by-hand on see-through tissue paper, on top of an autocad drawing of the existing house (to me, this was: "practical free-handing"). This was FUN, and a very effective way to do it b/c you can easily make changes and/or start over as you discuss through making your needs/wants possible. Then he hands off the sketches to one of his 5 or 6 employees that work on autocad (they all sit in the garage apartment of the house, 15 ft away). You have one of them specifically assigned to you, which works more efficiently than not having a specific individual (another designer we interviewed said we'd have access to everyone, which sounds good in theory, but likely wouldn't have worked as well when I changed my mind back and forth more than I ever thought possible). Throughout the process, Sam was very proactive in communication and setting up design sessions with us. He always reinforced how important it was to get the designs as-right-as-possible on paper and didn't make me feel bad when I went back and forth, changing things big or small several times - "it's much easier/cheaper to change it on paper NOW than when you are under construction." He listens very well and was the perfect balance of providing suggestions and listening to our needs/wants - which resulted in something better than I ever could have ever come up with. Also, he met with us after our workday ended, which was very important when you have a small baby and both parents work! So LONG STORY LONG, I couldn't be happier with the plans of my "new" 1920 dream home! We are currently in the City permitting process and will start construction when that is done soon. I am so excited to see my dreams become a reality and have been recommending Sam to friends left and right!