LA couple continues family tradition

By Katie Roper, Special to the Town Crier

They were not high school sweethearts, but Sandra Barnett-Brook remembers clearly what Greg wrote in her Los Altos High School Yearbook in 1981: “One day I will build a house for you.”

He did that, and more. Sandra and Greg Brook are now married, with two children, living in the second house he built for her and even working together in Greg’s construction company, Real Estate Solutions Inc. RES Homes, as the company is known, builds midsized homes almost exclusively in Los Altos. Greg manages the construction, while Sandra selects finishes and decorates the homes they build.

Building houses in Los Altos is literally in Greg’s blood. His father, Henry Brook, built more than 300 homes locally, starting in 1975. “I give him a hard time for using up all my land,” joked Greg, who worked for his father at Rogers and Brook Inc. until Henry retired in 1996.

The lack of land does pose a challenge for Los Altos builders, admitted Greg, but he added that it keeps the bigger builders out and opens the door for smaller companies to compete. “For those of us building onesie-twosie, there’s still stuff left,” he said, pointing to the four-lot subdivision he’s developing on Miravalle Avenue in Los Altos. RES Homes typically has two to five houses in process at any given time.

And Sandra, who attended Oak School and Blach Junior High School, perfectly complements Greg. “If Greg has seen it before, he wants to do it again,” said Sandra of her husband’s building and design practices. “If I’ve seen it before, I want to do it differently.”

When Sandra finished her design degree, she wanted to come back to the area so she started networking with some of her former Los Altos High classmates. One friend suggested Greg as a source of design work. “We knew each other in school, and we’re sure we went to one of the dances together, but we had completely lost touch,” Sandra reminisced. She called him, looking for leads. He was “looking for someone to have coffee with,” he remembered. They hit it off both professionally and personally. In fact, the friend who reintroduced them was one of their first clients.

Many of the Brooks’ projects these days are teardowns. Greg tries to save as much as he can, but he explained that, given the strict building codes implemented since the Loma Prieta earthquake, “a bit of frame and some foundation is about all you can salvage.”

In addition, he feels that building has increased tenfold in complexity in the last five years, between new requirements for seismic stability and electrical wiring and new buyer expectations for such extras as computer networking and home entertainment systems.

To manage this complexity, the Brooks have evolved a set of standard systems. The company slogan is “Revolutionizing the process of building substantial modern homes.” For instance, Sandra considers there to be 65 categories of interior finishes to select, everything from countertops to doorknobs. Rather than make every decision every time, Sandra groups choices that work well together into a smaller number of packages. So, for instance, a selection of a specific style of kitchen cabinet triggers cabinet pulls and faucet selection as well.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I can tell which decisions buyers really want input on and which they are just as happy to have made for them,” she said.

The houses in the Miravalle Avenue subdivision are typically around 3,500 square feet, with large basements that can add as much as 2,600 square feet to the home size. Average prices are $2.5 million, according to Elaine Klemm, the Alain Pinel realtor who sells RES Homes developments.

“When you walk into one of Greg’s houses, it feels weighty and solid,” Klemm said. “He has a feeling of wanting to do the right thing and the skills to do it.”

Approximately half the Brooks’ projects have buyers before the homes are done, although they both prefer to build on spec, with no buyer lined up, for more flexibility. “People are very traditional, and I like to do a little experimentation,” Sandra said.

For Greg’s part, he uses new computer software to manage each development project, including creating detailed drawings with Adobe Illustrator. “Builders pooh-pooh my drawings, but for a client it is invaluable since most people can’t visualize things very well,” said Greg. “The key to a happy client is to manage expectations.”

Both members of the couple strive for a balance of form and function. “I’ve tried a lot of beautiful countertop materials, but you’ve just got to stick with granite because nothing else works as well,” said Sandra. And function is important to the Brooks because Greg and Sandra live in their own buildings.

“We see what we never want to do again,” Sandra laughed, citing a bathroom faucet style that looked beautiful in the showroom but which makes it difficult to actually wash her face. “I’ve already changed them out for the next house we’re building,” she said.

Another recent example of form vs. function is paint colors. The Brooks recently moved into one of the four houses in their Miravalle Avenue location. For financial and logistical reasons, it would have made sense to select one of the two homes they’d already finished, but Sandra chose the other.

“I had just discovered a new paint finish, called ‘low sheen,’ that lets you wipe off children’s fingerprints with a sponge. I had already painted the other house in flat paint, which shows where you’ve wiped, and I just couldn’t go through that again,” Sandra said, recalling how she had had to repaint her previous house while living in it. The Brooks’ children are both younger than five, so fingerprints are a real issue. “She made me put my career on the line for paint,” said Greg, who was under the gun to finish Sandra’s selected house before they had to move out of their old one.

There are some downsides for the Brooks in living where they do. Frequently, subcontractors working on the two homes under construction don’t realize that Greg’s office is in the basement, and come knocking at the front door. “We’re basically living in a building site for the next few years,” said Sandra.

Still, the advantages of keeping everything in the family outweigh the disadvantages. When Emily MacWilliamson and her husband wanted a house, they approached Henry Brook about building one. Finding he was retired, they turned to Greg instead.

“He was very nice to work with, and really listened to what we had to say,” said MacWilliamson.

And Henry, who came out of retirement to start another building company with his younger son, Ross, said he is very proud that his sons are continuing to build houses in his community.