Swallowtail Architecture

Project was remodeling and expanding a 1,600 sq. ft house to a 2,600 house adapted for eventual old age living. Ms Burton executed our wishes with a number of helpful changes. Good attention to detail throughout the project (8 - 10 months of planning & approvals and 10 months of construction). House in A-zoned , historic preservation district, so a lot of guidelines to comply with. Ms Burton particularly helpful with the approval process. We have recommended her to others.

We have worked with Swallowtail several times in the past, and were extremely happy with the creativity and quality of their designs. Our clients loved the designs, and we were impressed with the detail and innovative ideas. They are a delight to work with. I highly recommend Swallowtail Architecture!

Great design work provided in a timely fashion and with a good ability to meld client needs and wants with local ARC. Always helped to use design process to meet budgetary constraints and sometimes communicating from different country and time zone using emails and the phone.

Rachel Burton has been our architect for a number of years. It has been a great relationship due to Rachel's expertise, professional manner and guidance throughout our house addition planning process. She has adapted to our time changes and provided the continuity needed to maintain an ongoing process. Swallowtail Architecture has been timely in producing drawings, scheduling meetings and on-site consultations. Her creativity and vision to solve design problems are much appreciated strengths. Project costs are projected in the $200 -$250K range. We look forward to working with Rachel during the construction phase of our project!

My husband and I have been working with Rachel Burton of Swallowtail Artictecture to build our one level "retirement" home. She has been a delight to work with! She listened to our ideas and needs, understood our lifestyle and facilitated dialogue to design our dream home on our unique lot. Through her, we met with three builders and selected one that we are happy and confident to work with.

As a custom builder, I have worked with Rachel in both renovations and homes. I appreciate her level of professionalism and warmth with her clients. I never hesitate to recommend her when I have a client that needs an architect.

In early 2015, we considered 2 other fine firms before hiring Rachel Burton of Swallowtail Architecture to design a tall one story 2000-2500 square foot home in the Historic District of Summerville, SC. The project was unique in that our new home needed to be compatible with an 1850s frame cottage that was already in existence on our building site. The historic cottage could not be materially modified without permission of the town's Board of Architectural Review. Rachel managed to capture 95% of what we wanted in her initial design presentation. We requested only minor modifications as we worked toward the final design. Rachel then guided the project through the local BAR approval process, solely representing us in several design review meetings while we were out of town. Upon getting the necessary BAR approvals, she then recommended and met with several quality builders on our behalf to obtain cost proposals. Unfortunately, all of the proposals exceeded our pre-design cost per square foot estimate by nearly 30%, a result of the Charleston area housing boom that had spilled over to thebedroom community of Summerville. Rather than break our retirement budget to build our dream home, we instead decided to buy an exisitng home nearby and renovate it. We then hired Rachel to design the renovation. Construction is scheduled to start in October 2016. We highly recommend Rachel Burton. She employed both a practical and artistic approach towards meeting our unique needs, offered excellent upfront guidance, and was very pleasant to work with. Simply put, we trust her.

Working with Rachel Burton at Swallowtail is one of the best partnering experiences that I have had. I am an Interior Designer and always welcome the opportunity to work with Rachel. Her ability to listen to a clients needs and desires and then interpret them into an incredible Architectural/Design Solution is quite a process to take part in. Her professional and calm demeanor translates into her work and the relationships that consequently develop. I have worked on multiple projects over the years with Rachel and look forward to many more to come!!!

Professional collaboration with Swallowtail is always a pleasure. Rachel is thorough, thoughtful, and attentive to the important details in design and construction.

Rachel Burton was great-She drew up a master plan for my home in SC and then co-ordinated with my Contractor and Designer and made sure the project went according to plan-Her calm demeanor and quiet confidence made working with her a true joy-I would use here again and.Her integrity and professionalism were above reproach.My home is fantastic!!

Ms. Burton met with us, listened to our ideas, and was able to include all of them in the plans for our renovation and addition.

Swallowtail Architecture (Rachel) was hired by my contractor to provide the drawings for the renovation to our house. My wife (Carol) and I found Rachel very easy to work with, as she was able to take our thoughts and idea's from discussions, then tailor the design to fit our personal desires. Specifically, we had no idea that we had the space for an additional Closet in the master, but, by doing some rearranging/reconfiguration (which actually worked out better than our original idea) of the master bath, we were able to add a closet. She took my wife's design for the kitchen, and after several interviews with Carol, Rachel was able to get a good feel for Carol's needs, and provide a design that was very efficient in the placement of all the appliances, and that actually met Carol's dreams for her kitchen. My guess is that any architect can provide the customer with a set of drawings based on the provided spec's, but then to actually tailor/customize the drawings, into a design that actually interpreted our internal thoughts and desires is what made Rachel so special to us and our build. From several meetings with her, she was able to pull out our thoughts into what we feel is an amazing design. We had no idea that we would ever have a design like this.