Walker Architecture

We bought a lovely small modern home with a bedroom addition that Les Walker had designed in the 1990's. We were thrilled that Les and his son Jess were available to create a kitchen and dining addition for us, renovate and add new bathrooms, modernize and update the electric and plumbing systems, and create a new flow for the house. Our one request was to bring the beauty of the natural setting into the home, and the design succeeded beautifully. Les and Jess were available when needed for detailed design selections, advice about challenges along the way, and they brought a great contractor to the project as well. We are so fortunate to live in a Walker Architecture home.

As a dedicated student of architecture and a hobbyist home designer, I have met and tried to collaborate with many architects. I haven’t always found that easy, enjoyable or valuable. Walker Architecture, led by Les Walker and his very accomplished son Jess, were easy and enjoyable to work with and their contribution was very valuable to me and the project. Les had the main role in helping me to draw and execute a mountain top house in Woodstock, New York. His design sense is excellent, but he distinguishes himself with maintaining the human being within the professional. He thinks practically about the occupants and the life of the house. He is not driven by his ego or preconceptions. He “democratizes” architecture by making it approachable to the layman. His books on the subject (I have five) are focused in the delight of houses and their design. His audience for those books include parents, children, novices, students and amateur home designers. His affinity for the “real person” and his childlike love of the craft comes through in his work as an architect. He is also a specialist in the economy of space. This makes his designs more affordable, sustainable and easily experienced. Les is old school and still draws with the hand. Many of my favorite buildings were drawn that way, including Fallingwater, so I have no problem here. In fact, I feel that hand drawing is very important in playing back the creative energy without translation loss through the computer. That is not to say that computer assisted design is not a critical tool for architects. This is where the partnership with his son Jess works wonderfully. Jess brings to the practice the very modern tools and design exposures he needed to run the studio of a prestigious New York Architectural firm. While one can see Les Walker’s work hiking the roads of Ulster County, New York, they can experience Jess Walker’s architecture walking along the New York City Highline. Architecture is frozen music. Some architects grab on to what becomes intellectually appealing and their structures, often wonderful, are like complex atonal jazz interrupted by some petition for a cause. Les and Jess are capable of such composing, but realize that real people need a real house which, for the owner, can be dance music. In my new house, I dance.

I hired Les Walker due to his deep knowledge of architectural history. I asked him to design an artist's studio in the style of Philip Johnson via Mies van der Rohe. Les came up with a good plan and made a model. He worked with the contractor on changes that came up. He designed a beautiful building that is a glass box that sits in a field.

Dear Houzz Reader, I have hired Jess and Les Walker of Walker Architecture to design a small studio for me in Woodstock, NY. I went with this firm because they have an excellent reputation and collectively the father and son team have decades of experience. Les Walker has been called the 'grandfather of the tiny house movement' and has written numerous books including: Tiny Tiny Houses: Or How To Get Away From It All -- and American Shelter: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Amercian Home. It was a great choice of architects. They are both very attentive to details and collaborative...they really know how to listen to their client. They were eager to come out to my site and have been ever so patient with me as I try and make design decisions - even constructing a model for me to better understand their drawings. They have a wealth of information at the fingertips and are literate in various styles of architecture as well as all aspects of construction. Not only can they come up with great concepts, but they know how to execute their designs and understand their associated costs. When it came to the building department, Jess was very adept at communicating with town officials and securing the permits! I highly recommend Walker Architecture.

I have worked with Les and Jess Walker professionally, and I would highly recommend them for all your architectural needs.

Walker Architecture is a hands-on, professional, and experienced father/son team. I worked with them on a ~$250k expansion of a retail store during Fall 2017. The project was completed on-time and on-budget. The finished product is beautiful and exceeded all of our expectations. Walker Architecture was helpful, prompt, and professional throughout my experience working with them, and I recommend them without qualification.

I worked with Jess on a very unusual project - building a private, personal sculpture garden on a mountain property I own. I realize that many prospective clients won't be seeking this type of specific acumen, but from start to finish, Jess has provided a brilliant sense of design, architecture, project management and risk mitigation. The sculpture garden includes a piece of art that stands nearly 40 feet tall and is perched on the side of a mountain on my property. Installation included building a nearly 1 km road with an acceptable grade that allowed construction vehicles to traverse it. The construction and logistics were a profound achievement. A road was etched into the mountain, mirroring an archaic logging road. Jess worked with a team of consultants and engineers to secure the proper environmental impact assessments and to ensure a low to minimal impact on Nature. In essence, no one off the property would even know this road and garden existed. The creation of the underlying infrastructure of the project was an intense exercise in creativity and ingenuity. Jess proved over and over again his capacity to execute totally unique, one-of-a-kind projects. I would guess that most clients, while not seeking his assistance on a project like mine, would expect their dream homes to be unique and special as well. In that concern, Jess would be an incredible partner to fulfill those aspirations. I would work with him again in a heartbeat and know that I will that chance very very very very soon! In fact, I am intending to hire him to build my dream home on this property as well.

We hired Walker Architecture to build our restaurant from scratch. It was a gut renovation and included a lot of engineering work and a complete new commercial kitchen. I was extremely happy with the outcome and found working with Jess and Les to be very enjoyable and professional. The restaurant is beautiful and functions extremely well and that is in no small part down to their hard work.

The best, most experienced, creative, innovative architects in Woodstock! Father and son team have worked so well with us on many different projects - large and small, commercial, residential and for our own home - and always been delighted with the results. They are well known and respected in town, able to make things happen and transform our visions and dreams into realty.