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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews architect Michele Grace Hottel, who shares her journey in the architecture field, her passion for design, and her transition into building. Michele discusses her extensive experience, the importance of site-specific design, and the value of working closely with contractors and clients to ensure successful projects. She emphasizes the significance of being present on job sites and the impact of thoughtful design on property value.
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Michele Grace Hottel (00:00)
Absolutely. mean, especially in the projects in Coronado. mean, you know, ⁓ the real estate is already expensive in Coronado. You know, I mean, like I said, that one, was 40 by 50 lot with, you know, 1.26 million with a house on it that the clients are like, yeah, we could never.We could never live here, you know, even though, mean, I could have lived there, you know, it’s like they didn’t want to live there. ⁓ you know, re redoing that and really kind of showing that within, you know, from, know, 2017 to, you know, what eight years later, right. The return on it is about 2 million. Yeah.
Micah Johnson (00:46)
Wow,Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Michele, who’s been making some serious moves in the architecture space for quite some time now. Michele, welcome in, I’m glad to have you.
Michele Grace Hottel (02:33)
Hi Micah, thank you for inviting me.Micah Johnson (02:36)
Absolutely. I’m excited for our conversation today. This is one, I haven’t had it before. And two, it’s a section of the business I find super interesting when it’s in the design phase and how important it is and what it can actually do for an investment in a deal that you’re doing. So I’m pumped to dig in here. So for folks who may not know you yet, tell us a more about yourself and what your main focus is right now.Michele Grace Hottel (03:01)
My name is Michele Grace Hottel of Michele Grace Hottel Architect. I started my practice in 94 when I gave birth to my daughter and became licensed. So that was kind of like transitioning into working on my own. I’d been working for an architect since 1983 and I’d gone to architecture school and you know.Micah Johnson (03:14)
Gotcha.Michele Grace Hottel (03:29)
was ready to start my own practice and do my own work. So it was kind of like the perfect time to do it. And so I’ve been working on a custom residential, know, small commercial preschools, some church work, ⁓ and I’m looking to do design build now.Micah Johnson (03:49)
Love that. Okay, so why architecture? You’ve been doing it for a long time and I know this, people don’t do stuff for a super long time that they don’t enjoy doing. We’ll typically eliminate those activities. So what is it? What got you into it and kept you around all this time? ⁓Michele Grace Hottel (03:54)
YouYou know, I’ve
always drawn and painted and I kind of like, you know, people would recognize, you know, and kind of say like, ⁓ look, you know, isn’t that nice or she’s drawing or something. And then in eighth grade, had to pick an occupation career in health class and ⁓ why health class? I don’t know, but.
Anyway, in health class. so, you know, back then it wasn’t, you know, wasn’t software on a computer. It was like a little box. And so I’d always wanted to be an artist, but I didn’t think that I’d be able to make enough money doing that. And so I, you know, I always enjoyed architecture, you know, or I always enjoyed buildings.
Micah Johnson (04:31)
Yeah.Michele Grace Hottel (04:52)
So I decided, ⁓ one of the cards is architecture. And I’m like, OK, I’ll do that. And my math wasn’t great. So I said, OK, ⁓ I’ll be a drafter if I can’t make it through architecture school. And I took a drafting class in 10th grade. then I went to, ⁓ it was a technical school. was like half a day I would go to regular high school. And then half a day I would go to technical school. And then that would also, I also.Micah Johnson (05:12)
Okay.Michele Grace Hottel (05:21)
drafted there. And then when I graduated high school, my mom and my stepdad had moved to the West Coast. So I moved back out there with them. And I went to architecture school in California. And, you know, I’ve been living here the whole time. You know, in spite of I did spend a year in Denmark during my, during my architecture school.Micah Johnson (05:38)
Love that.Okay.
a good time too. I don’t hear a lot of someone finding someone in eighth grade and it like working out like that where it just kind of leads into it. I love that. I’m thinking about my daughter. She’s very artistic and it’s like, okay, I may need to create a architecture index card and have her draw it. Honey, we’re in health class now and I need you to pick occupation and all these cards are blank except one.
Michele Grace Hottel (06:34)
Yeah, very nice.you
And you know what, Micah, should probably be like, dad, I can just look on my phone and do that. I can find it right here. Everything I need to know about architecture is right here.
Micah Johnson (07:05)
Right, right, yeah.Yeah, she’s 12. She definitely thinks she knows it all for sure. ⁓ Well, okay, so you’ve been here, you’ve done a lot of architecture through, or you have a lot of architecture experience, you’ve owned your own practice for a long time. Now you’re getting where do you want to design and build? Now I was surprised backstage beforehand to find out that some architects do this, but not everybody does it, which was fascinating to me.
Michele Grace Hottel (07:16)
Yeah!Micah Johnson (07:40)
What’s led you to this? What’s got you to the point now where you’re like, all right, I want to design it and bring it up from the ground.Michele Grace Hottel (07:45)
probably 20 years now, think, the last 20 years. recently I did, I’ve just been talking to other architects about it. And it’s like kind of the time is right right now. And so one of the architects as developer here in town is Jonathan Siegel. And he’s been doing this work for himself for.at least probably 30 years now. And I did a podcast interview with him and I kind of, and he said, yeah, he goes first just, he’s like, you’ve already designed things, you’ve already done work for other, for your clients, you have your own practice. He goes, do your own house. And I said, well, yeah, I added on to my own house. And so,
and kind of experienced that. And then now I’m ready to go on. And I’ve done a couple spec homes. I did a couple spec homes for a contractor. But then with a contractor, you’re dealing with somebody else’s And so when
creating that, when you’re going through that budget, a lot of times the contract, well, let’s cut back here, let’s cut back there. And it’s not like it doesn’t happen. I mean I know that I had to cut back on with things from the budget on my own edition, plus it was going, was, ⁓ we were building it during COVID.
So that was really challenging as far as like trying, know, because it was, we had to get it done by June 1st of 2020 because we had somebody that needed to move into the addition for a medical.
condition. And so, you know, we kind of, we had to make it an accessible addition on the house because, you know, the rest of the house was not accessible. And so this addition was accessible. And so we built on the back and then broke through. ⁓ Yeah.
Micah Johnson (09:46)
Gotcha. Well,it makes sense to do your own house first because then you really experience like what it’s like. Like you’re living it out. You’re waking up, drinking your coffee next to the job site and like seeing, okay, this is what translates from paper to product. Okay. Now I get to see that. Heck yeah. That should give you confidence to lead to the next step. So what’s got you excited this year? What’s going on now that’s leading to bringing something up from the earth?
Michele Grace Hottel (09:57)
youI have four houses that I’ve been working on for a while and those, we’re about to get the permit on those. So those are gonna go under construction pretty soon. And there are four houses on a lot split. And I’m the architect on that. I have ⁓ an existing old house that we’re ⁓ adding onto in the back. ⁓
I’ve got a project in the beach area that is going to be interesting. It’s pretty interesting client. We have an interesting addition and remodel for that, like big open spaces. So the existing house is kind of a traditional house. then on the, you know, I’m going to, I’m adding a roof deck.
on the front of the house that kind of goes up. it’s kind of this modern block that’s going up in the front. And then we have this modern block that’s going up in the back. And then we raised the back edition so that he gets this great view of the ocean. You know, it’s kind of like this big framed window that’s actually, you know, a pivot door. And so it’s a huge pivot door and then, you know, kind of the deck that’s ⁓ going out. Yeah. Yeah.
Micah Johnson (12:00)
yeah, that’s gonna be cool. That’s gonna be really cool. Michele, I’m need youto send me a picture of that when you’re done with it.
Michele Grace Hottel (12:07)
Okay, I will. Yeah, yeah.Yeah, we’re getting, you know, I mean, I mean, sometimes you just never know because ⁓ this client was thinking, well, maybe I won’t, you know, maybe I won’t build it. Maybe I’ll just sell it with the plans. And I’m like, I don’t know whether that’s going to go too well, you know, but.
You know, so anyway, last week, last week the contractor was like, oh yeah, he wants to start building next week. And I’m like, okay, cause we have the permit for it. I’m like, why aren’t you, you know, yeah. So, so he, he leaves to go out of town and we’re supposed to just like move forward with this. it’s interesting. Some changes. Yeah. Yeah. Some changes. Yeah.
Micah Johnson (12:40)
be a fun one.Well,
it’s all good practice for what you’re getting ready to do when you do it for yourself. It’s because it’s not that you’re just the customer and the architect. Now you get to experience everything that they experience all the way through, you know, each section, which is you’re doing it the right way because you can jump into a project and things can not go right quick. But when you learn it, those step by steps, you’re setting yourself up some set some success. Now, what excites you most about getting to design your own stuff, getting to
to do it from beginning to end.
Michele Grace Hottel (13:14)
lot of addition remodels. It’s a real skill to do an addition remodel because some people want to match the existing house. Some people want to have something that’s totally different from the thing. Sometimes we’re totally …recreating the house like this, the 911 9th Street project in Coronado, ⁓ where it was an existing traditional house, but it had really been redone not very nicely over the years. And so we took everything down. And now it’s this modern project. And people were kind of like, what? That’s an addition remodel? thought it was from scratch. And I said, no, it’s just totally redesigned the whole thing to stay within the existing. ⁓
know, setbacks on the site so we can get more square footage, you because we could only increase the square footage by a little bit. But one of the things that you can do with a new build is that you can kind of create with the site, you know. So I’ve been looking at sites, you know, and.
And then being able to, you know, conceptually design, know, kind of like looking at the elements of the site, the topography, you know, where the sun is, I’m going say any, you know, site features, and then really designing around those site features to really be more of a conceptual, ⁓ conceptually designed house and not, know, like a lot of tractiles is it’s the same floor plan in a development. so, you know, it’s regardless of where the sun is or what
topography, usually they flatten out the site and things like that. So really, think that kind of the unique… ⁓
you know, some of the unique aspects of having an architect design your house is they can kind of design around the site. And then also, you know, if you’re not leveling out the site and doing all of this, you know, earth moving and things, you know, you could then cut down on the costs of doing that and then kind of building, you know, and then that floor plan and, know, and elevations and sections will all work within that, within that topography and those site features.
Micah Johnson (16:07)
think the value is not everybody can see it. Like I can’t see things like some folks can walk in somewhere and see something that’s not there. I’m not the best at that inside homes. And to have that, to know it’s not my skill, right? Like to lean on someone that it is their skill to say, hey, and then even if it is your skill to talk to someone, it’s their professional skill of saying, look, this is what you can really do. Cause you’re right. It’s.Michele Grace Hottel (16:11)
Yeah.Mm-hmm.
Micah Johnson (16:34)
It’s one of those things where you know much money you’re saving, but you don’t know what it’s costing you kind of issue where, I mean, how much have you seen that projects you’ve worked on as an architect actually end up being more valuable because you worked on.Michele Grace Hottel (16:39)
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.Absolutely. mean, especially in the projects in Coronado. mean, you know, ⁓ the real estate is already expensive in Coronado. You know, I mean, like I said, that one, was 40 by 50 lot with, you know, 1.26 million with a house on it that the clients are like, yeah, we could never.
We could never live here, you know, even though, mean, I could have lived there, you know, it’s like they didn’t want to live there. ⁓ you know, re redoing that and really kind of showing that within, you know, from, know, 2017 to, you know, what eight years later, right. The return on it is about 2 million. Yeah.
Micah Johnson (17:38)
Wow,Michele Grace Hottel (17:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Micah Johnson (17:41)
significant in short period of time.Michele Grace Hottel (17:43)
Yeah. And I mean, you know, it’s one of those things where, where like people be like, is that, know, ⁓ I like, didn’t realize that you had done that house, right? Because we don’t have anything, you know, a lot of architects, mean, and I think all our students should do. Frank Lloyd Wright did it, you know, Jonathan Siegel will do it. He’ll put, he’ll put like his name on the building, you know, and, and, you know, it’s like, yeah, I would love to be able to put my name on it so that people, yeah. You know, I mean, just smut something small, you know, I mean, Frank Lloyd Wright used to do a little tile, but then people would know like, okay, that’s, that’s one ofof his buildings. And so, you know, I mean, that’s, that’s advertisement for your, you know, your livelihood, you know, so it’s, it’s always going to I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Micah Johnson (18:22)
Now do you have one? What’s your mark?All right, you’re gonna, well, you’re an architect, so I trust that you’re gonna be able to build one because heck yeah, that’s so cool.
Michele Grace Hottel (18:35)
I know, probably a stainless steel.I’m thinking, yeah, I’m thinking stainless steel, stainless steel probably, you know, with my logo, with my logo in it or my name, yeah.
Micah Johnson (18:42)
Okay, that’s so cool.Right, like you leave a little secret behind, like, oh, and if you know, you know, nice, that’s cool. I love that. I love that idea. Cause it is, it’s, we were talking about earlier. I mean, you bring, that thing comes out of your mind onto paper or a screen now, obviously probably printed later, obviously, but it’s, it’s from a concept to paper to existence. Like that has got to be a fulfilling experience. And I would feel kind of cut off if I didn’t get to see the ending.
Michele Grace Hottel (18:51)
Yeah. ⁓Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s funny. of my one of my contractors, he’s like, you’re the only architect that I’ve ever worked with that, comes to the job site. And I’m like, what? And I’m like, I thought everybody went to the job site. I mean, that’s kind of the way that I was trained, because then, you know, there’s a lot of especially in addition remodels, you know, with existing buildings, you know, there’s like a lot of, you know, you’ll open up a wall and
And it’s like, what? This was never framed correctly. And then we have to sit the second story on top of it. So we have to redo things. So I’d rather be the person that’s there to say, OK, if we have to change the plans, I would like to change the plans and not have somebody that isn’t trained in design to kind of just wing it in the field.
Micah Johnson (20:04)
Well, that definitelymakes your value right there even higher because one, it shows you actually care about the project. the heart of it explains why you’ve done it for so long. You actually care about what you’re doing. And then you care about the excellence of it, right? You got to inspect what you expect every time. if you don’t, just won’t, it won’t be like you want it to do. And you’ve got 30 plus years of…
knowledge and expertise going into a design that you don’t want a guy that’s been doing construction for three years being like, well, we’re just going to put that over here.
Michele Grace Hottel (20:38)
Well, another thing is, is that the contractors, typically don’t want to work with the homeowner. They don’t, you know, it’s like they’ll kind of, some of them will be like, ⁓ yeah. You know, but I mean, the less that they have to try to figure out, you know, I mean, they don’t, they don’t care about the color of the, you know, it’s like, it’s just like, what do you want? Like what color do you want to, you know, and, even with, you know, even with the color, I mean, I, you know, people will say like, you know, what color I’ve had friends like, what color should we paint our house? You know, I’m like, well, you have to put, you know,Micah Johnson (20:57)
Right.Michele Grace Hottel (21:08)
look at the different paint colors that you have in mind, and then buy a sample and put a huge…swath up on different sides of your house, because the light’s gonna be different, it’s gonna change over the course of the day. It’s not just a little paint chip that you’re gonna be able to see. And it’s always, typically in California, it’s always gonna be lighter on the wall than it appears on the chip. So people will pick out something that they think is a gray and I look and I’m like, it’s gonna be white, it’s gonna be white in the
You know, they’ll paint the whole house. I you know, one of one of my friends that they painted the whole house and then they’re like, yeah We should have gone with a darker color. It looks white and I’m like ⁓
Micah Johnson (22:00)
know if you remember this conversationwe were having a while back where I specifically think I said it’s going to be white. Yeah. So that’s funny. You didn’t, it’s not your first size. Funny folks will listen and then be like, I think I know better. Somebody’s been doing this for years.
Michele Grace Hottel (22:06)
Yeah.Well, you know, I mean, I also say, you know, it’s like people come in and then they’re like, oh, I, know, it’s like, well, I want to do it this way. I mean, I had one of the one of the projects in Coronado. I had an owner’s rep and and you know, I mean, she was young, you know, but she had she had like done some flips before and she was a realtor, you know, and this was for this was for a client. But I’m.
It was just kind of like, yeah. And so she went with these different tiles, like kind of a neutral palette, but it was like so neutral. It was kind of more bland. And it was gonna be this high-end rental. But at the end of the process, she was like, she said, well, everything that you told me to do that I didn’t do, I should have done. And I was like, okay, just as long as you realize it.
Micah Johnson (23:07)
You know, because I’m not making it up. aren’t just, I guess they’re suggestions, but they’re suggestions based on massive amounts of data. Okay. So it’s, it’s not just, I’m not just winging it. Well, I love that. So one of my favorite things when I’m talking to people and work with people is first they actually care about what they’re doing.Michele Grace Hottel (23:10)
You’re not making it up. Yeah.Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Micah Johnson (23:26)
That’s it, that’s one of my big requirements. So I appreciate it that you actually care. Then you’re an expert at what you do. You’re in the field. You’re making sure you’re seeing what’s going on and able to help with changes and really bring it to completion, which is the goal the whole time, not to get stuck in the process. So you’re helping people get all the way through. For folks that are listening in that would possibly wanna work with you, learn more about you, what’s the best way for them to find you?Michele Grace Hottel (23:50)
You can go on my website, that’s www.mgharchitect.com and you can contact me on there, fill out the form, send it, you know, right there. I’ll respond to you within 24 hours. Personally, personally.Micah Johnson (24:04)
Thank you for sharing. There you go. See that extra touch of service. I’m telling you, I say it all the time.We bring professionals on this show for a reason. Reach out to them if what they’re doing is something you need because that’s the point of this is to, it’s real estate is a team sport. You need folks in your tool belt. If you need an architect, check the show notes, reach out to Michele, work with professional.
Again, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for being here. I loved our conversation and our time together. For those that are listening or watching out there, if you’ve got value out of today’s episode, please like it, share it with someone else you think could use it too. And as always, please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us out there. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Michele out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us. We’ll see you on the next episode.
