CHOSEN ONES: Hidey’s many Builder’s Choice awards include Wyndover Bay (above), a winner in 1999, and Greyhawk (bottom), which earned an award as the best single family detached production home in 2002.
Credit: Courtesy Robert Hidey Architects
If there’s a common thread that runs through this year’s trio of inductees into Builder’s Wm. S. Marvin Hall of Fame for Design Excellence, along with the fact that they consistently deliver outstanding homes, it is that they consider each project an exceptional challenge. Joe Bohm, president and CEO of Horizon Builders, the first custom builder inducted in the five-year history of the program, calls it “getting our heads into the project.” The second-generation principals at BAR Architects, another 2009 inductee, have forged a five-decade legacy on what they term “niche” projects that, regardless of scope or scale and what’s come before them, receive a custom and contextual approach. And the success of architect Robert Hidey to time and again distinguish the homes of his merchant builder clients by ferreting out what will resonate with buyers of each particular home or neighborhood leaves no mystery as to why his work looks, lives, and sells better than almost anyone else’s. It’s a shared philosophy and practice that satisfies curiosity, exposes every detail, fosters collaboration, and ultimately results in better-designed and better-built buildings. And it’s why these three are the newest inductees into the Hall of Fame.
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Credit: Robert Benson
Robert Hidey
Robert Hidey Architects
Irvine, Calif.
Robert Hidey knows Los Angeles. Not the one you think you know from the movies or television, but the real one. The L.A. of low-sloped clay tile roofs, courtyards, and deep, covered porches designed by architects who understood the form and function of those features. Hidey grew up in a neighborhood like that, and his experience serves as a foundation of respect for historic context, an appreciation for practicality, and a reminder that housing can (and should) be simple and special.
His trail of award-winning designs speaks to his talent as an architect, but the fact that he has delivered such exceptional design work within the production housing realm makes his accomplishments even more remarkable. Awards aren’t the goal, of course.
Credit: Mark Boisclair
Hidey measures his success by that of his builder clients. “If they come back, we’re successful,” he says. And they do, with some having collaborated with the firm on more than 50 projects. The secret: On each project, for each house, Hidey seeks out what he calls practical solutions that have been overlooked or are unexpected. It may be something as simple as extra storage in a home for first-time buyers or as game-changing as detached housing at 18 units per acre, which he introduced to the Southern California market to huge market acceptance.
Credit: Mark Boisclair
Hidey also leverages his respect for the past as a reference, not as a substitute for innovation. While drawn to reliable forms and materials, he gets it that modern lifestyles demand open floor plans and multiuse spaces—and still figures out a way to make them look comfortable and inviting from the street. “We design dwellings that are contextual, and that’s one of the reasons they’ve held up so well.”