Episode 95 - Revolutionizing Home Design with Minnestoa’s Top Architect Christopher Strom
Episode #95 | Christopher Strom | Revolutionizing Home Design with Minnesota’s Top Architect Christopher Strom
Listen to the full episode:
In this episode of The Curious Builder, Mark Williams chats with Christopher Strom about the beauty and challenges of custom home-building, emphasizing the importance of taking time with decisions and enjoying the process. They dive into Christopher's work with Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), highlight iconic projects, and discuss the nuances of building a business that's not solely reliant on its owner's personal brand. With laughs about skiing, insights into family life, and a sprinkle of industry expertise, this episode is a heartfelt look into architecture and entrepreneurship.
About Christopher Strom
Christopher studied art at St Olaf College prior to receiving a Master's Degree in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Upon returning to Minnesota he became a Project Designer at Ellerbe Becket, working on the design of both domestic and international projects including convention centers, health care facilities, and high-rise office towers. He was lead designer for the Tostrud Athletic Center at St Olaf College. From 2003-2014 Chris designed and managed construction for many new homes, additions and remodels. Upon earning the 2014 AIA-Minnesota “Emerging Talent Award” for residential architecture, he founded Christopher Strom Architects.
His work has been selected for nine AIA Minnesota/ Star Tribune "Homes of the Month" and several Mpls-St Paul Magazine RAVE awards. Eight of his designs have been featured on AIA-MN “Homes by Architects” tours. Most recently Chris was an active participant in crafting the Minneapolis and Edina Accessory Dwelling Ordinances, and serves as an instructor at St Olaf College for an upper-level studio course on Architectural Design. In 2016 Chris was honored with an AIA-Minnesota “Young Architect Award” for exceptional leadership and significant contributions to the profession.
Christopher Strom Architects celebrated their 10th business anniversary in 2024. Also in 2024, Chris received the highest residential honor in Minnesota, the 2024-25 American Institute of Architects-MN “Residential Architect of Distinction”. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two sons and is active in their high school tennis programs
Resources:
-
Mark D. Williams 00:00
Before we get started, if you've been tuning into the show for a while, you realize that I love wellness. I love celebrating business owners, and really want to celebrate their health, their wellness, so that they can operate in the businesses that they have support the families that they work so hard for, as well as their trade partners and their clients. And with that in mind, we are going to have a half day retreat at Lake minnewasha in Minnesota on january 24 from one o'clock to five o'clock, Dr Mel Krug is going to lead 60 people through somatic breath work in the lodge. Then we'll go down into the water. You're going to cold dip anywhere from 10 seconds to three minutes. Then you'll go into the sauna and then rinse and repeat. At the end, we're going to have a Mediterranean wood fire grill meal together as a community, and that's it. So if this is something that you want to do to kick off 25 center, your New Year's resolutions around some new objectives, new communities and challenge yourself. Sonic camp is for you all. The details can be found at curious builder podcast.com
Christopher Strom 00:54
we really want to figure out where the house sits super early in the design process, because it has to do with we're in Minnesota. When are we gonna get natural light into this home? How are you gonna get the path of the sun over the course of the day? How can we leverage day lighting so that you're not always relying on our official light? All those kind of things that maybe a client doesn't come in and say, do that for me, those things that we really care about and are passionate about are gonna totally inform about the feel of the house and reinforce the goals that they had, that they did bring to you.
Mark D. Williams 01:33
Same here's for the podcast. We had Chris Strom on from Christopher Strom architects, and we had a delightful conversation. We talked a lot about growing an architecture firm, and really using some early notoriety through ADUs and working with cities to be at the leading edge of particular markets. Also towards the end of the interview, I really enjoyed talking about how developers can be more patient and really aligning with architecture to elevate their neighborhood and their building reputation in the area. So without further ado. Here's Chris. Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today I am joined with Chris strong from Christopher Strahm architects. Thank you for having me with an S. There's more. There's more than one architect there. Yes, there is. We've gotten to know each other over the last couple months, Chris, we're working together. But before we dive into that, those that are outside of Minnesota, may or may not know who you are, so let's do just a quick, brief history of who you are, how you got into architecture, and we'll just go down the rabbit hole.
Christopher Strom 02:28
Sure that sounds great again. Thanks for having me and interested in architecture, probably since, since sixth grade, there was a program at my school that allowed us to interview someone in a profession that we were interested in, and I met a architect that did some design work for my grandfather, who was a builder. And so I come from a somewhat of a construction background, and that my grandfather was only early 50s when I was born, and so I remember being at some of his construction sites. He built our house, he built our neighbor's house. And then my dad was really generous and letting me wreck a lot of his tools building a tree house in our backyard. And so I think I was always interested in a lot of different sides that contributed to an interest in architecture, which was drawing, building things. And I was actually an art major in undergrad. I went to St wolf College in Northfield, did a lot of drawing, some steel sculpture, color theory, but then, of course, all the other liberal arts classes that are really helpful and allowing you to think outside the box a little bit. And wasn't really sure what's what area of architecture I wanted to go into, other than I was very sure I was one of those kids that really knew what they wanted to do. That's rare. It is, I think it's somewhat common with architecture, because it's such a name brand profession. But in terms of kids knowing what they want to do that early, I think it is pretty rare. That's
Mark D. Williams 03:52
interesting. You're exposed by your grandpa and just being around it. What out of curiosity, what city were you did you grow up in?
Christopher Strom 03:58
I grew up in was pretty rural. Eden Prairie at the time, was 12,000 people in 1978 when we moved there, I was five, and so it was, there was, wasn't even any restaurants, very, very different than the Eden Prairie that's
Mark D. Williams 04:12
today. So we moved to Chaska in 86 okay. And so my dad was a builder, and okay, a lot. And so what brought him down here was Eden Prairie. He was really split homes, split level homes in the 70s and 80s. Interesting. And so we came down from Dayton, actually. Tom Bernard bought our home. His wife was into equestrian riding, and we had a horse farm up along the Crow River. Okay, so we moved down here Lake Bavaria, out in Chaska. But you said Ian prairie wasn't much. There was a lot of horses back there. There was and Chaska was nothing. So it's funny, those inner Greek suburbs. So it was funny. Ian very was, of course, our high school arch rival. Yes, they pretty much dominated us and everything.
Christopher Strom 04:46
Yeah, we were, we were okay. I think they're a lot stronger now in most things. Yeah, funny, but
Mark D. Williams 04:50
that's a small world. And my wife went to St Olaf. I knew the olies were different because now I have a lot of Oli friends, but it was funny. At a wedding, all of a sudden you guys all got up. You meaning your entire Olie brought. And all got up on their chairs and started doing your only chant. I'm like, what is happening? I feel like I'm at Hogwarts and they're doing like, some Gryffindor chant or something. Yeah, it's a it's a cult. It totally Anyway, okay, so you're into architecture. You went, did you go all the way through then into college, right into architecture school, and then tell us about your first couple jobs after? Sure,
Christopher Strom 05:17
sure. So I took a year break after undergrad, mostly because I just had heard so many stories about how arduous a path graduate school is and live with some friends. But I had a job in architecture. It was a company in St Anthony Maine area of Minneapolis that was commissioned to do all the Rainforest Cafe restaurants, if you remember those. Sure I do. And so I made a lot of clay elephants and using runts candy to make tropical trees and banana trees and Boulder walls and giraffes. And what year
Mark D. Williams 05:53
was that? Was that in the mid to late 90s or 1995
Christopher Strom 05:59
96 they were pretty hot thing the Mall of America was was up and running, but they were building rainforest cafes all throughout the United States in different malls. And the owner, who's actually a local Minnesotan, I think He's based in St Louis Park, still really like to see quarter inch scale models of his retail and dining environments, because it was supposed to be this immersive effect that you're walking into the rainforest. And we can debate if that's actually true at all, but my kids love it. Yeah, yeah. It's fun. It's really for kids and but I think the takeaway from that, more than the specific work, was I was in charge, with one other person on for this, establishing this model shop, and it was before 3d design was really much of a thing. It was basically 2d AutoCAD, and then we did a lot of quarter inch models for these retail environments. And so it's very hands on way to be important in the design process with very limited amount of skill or experience. And I got pretty darn good at quick model making, which served me well for the next year when I went into grad school.
Mark D. Williams 07:06
Interesting was, was Mark Ostrom does that? Mark, oh, yeah, we became good friends. We're in a small group together. I brought him on the podcast last about a year ago now, yeah, and then we now, I'm loosely involved with the joy collaborative. Yeah, we've done a few charities with him, but yeah, I only knew Carl, knew Mark Ostrom, so yeah, from Ellerby. What was Mark's tie? Because he was a designer. Now, what was he back then? Was he involved with the Rainforest Cafe? So
Christopher Strom 07:30
this was at Cunningham group, where I was before, when I went to grad school in California, I came back worked at Ellerbe Beckett, and Mark was an interior designer, and he worked on a lot of these really large institutional projects. Mark and I could probably both tell you war stories of working on this. My first project out of grad school was a several 100,000 square foot Convention Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Mark and I worked on this, this public street, indoor Street, that was called the Grand Gallery, and it was really expensive and really like, tons of glass, tons of pattern terrazzo, and yeah, so he and I got to know each other pretty well through this multi year project to this convention center. Interesting. Been with Carl. Carl idol we, we were these young, inexpensive designers, and we were tasked with a couple of different high rise competitions. For one was in Guangdong, China, and one was in Abu Dhabi. And so we did these really aspirational, multi story towers, collaborating with over Arup engineering. It was really heady stuff at the time. We had an expense account to eat lunch and dinner and stay at the office at all hours, and it wouldn't of course, nothing got built, but we got paid to work really hard on some cool designs. That was a fun experience. That's fun,
Mark D. Williams 08:54
man, we should do a live we do about two live events a year, but it sounds like between mark you and yeah, we could have one just about the iterations of the Rainforest Cafe. And right, what it is to be a budding architect working all hours. I know family, I'm sure, right, like, almost like a startup by that,
Christopher Strom 09:09
closing down the Palomino and Ian calamari late at night, and then going back to the studio and doing some more work. And we're all single, and just could get it done. And it was
Mark D. Williams 09:17
at the time, it was fun, yeah. Oh, funny. Now, do you stay in touch with those guys at all a little bit. I
Christopher Strom 09:22
see Mark, I definitely respect his work on the joy collaborative contributed to it, and really think that what he's doing is spectacular opportunity for kids that have special challenges and and, yeah, I do keep in touch. When you work in a commercial firm, you meet a lot of people from different parts of the profession that's a little bit different than residential architecture. We're pretty architecture. We're pretty focused residentially, where we do a lot of the same stuff, but the commercial path was a good way to get started
Mark D. Williams 09:49
marks when I interviewed mark, and I had known him before, just in that small group that we're in together. But hit because, and we won't talk that much more about it, other than you'll relate to this, like when you hear him tell his story, like. Hits you so deep in your heart, like I was like, Jake basically saying, Mark, I want to quit my job and come work for you, like it's helping kids or something. That's super powerful about that worse, and his mission is everyone, but it's hard operating a nonprofit is a it's not an easy game. It's really difficult. So anyway, shout out to him. Well, let's move on. So you walk us through At what point did you break off and start your own architecture firm? And I was a lot. So many listeners are entrepreneurs, builders, architects, designers, in those that might be budding. It's always interesting. We gain experience somewhere. Some of us, some of us just go straight forward. Yeah, my stories, I just went right into it. Just figured out completely building an airplane on the fly, which is maybe not the best way to do it, whatever. Still learning a lot. At what point did you know you wanted to start your own firm, and why? And walk us through that journey early on, that's
Christopher Strom 10:48
a great question. I don't think I knew right away that I wanted to start my own firm. I saw my grandfather operate his business. He was a was a partnership. It was him and one other guy that ran the business, and so I think they worked really hard, and they had some ownership over what they did, and they called the shots. So I think that was I was in the back of my mind, appealing. But I think when you go out on your own and start your own thing, it can be a lonely experience. You typically start by yourself. And I always really enjoyed working with the people in studio when COVID hit and we weren't in studio together. It sucked. It isn't a collaborative environment. I really enjoy being able to bounce ideas up of other people and come to conclusions together. I think it's a faster, more productive way of designing and I and another thing happened too. I went to graduate school in California, and a lot of my close friends and colleagues that I really resonated with it from a design sense, stayed out there, and this Minnesota, being my home, had called me back. And so you don't have that collective of peers that know how you work and understand how you think without having to actually spell everything out. And so it took me a while working with other people in a new environment to establish those connections and get to know the local builders. And it really is establishing a new network of people. So I worked at a really great residential firm for about 12 years, got to know those builders, and the industry understood that versus commercial architecture, residential architecture is really a game of inches, and a special attention has to be paid to scale, because when you're one or two people in a home, it's totally different than having 30 people in a commercial space. And you can scale it the same way, but it's not going to feel very good. And really understanding that level of scale took some time, and about 20 I started to have a little bit more recognition for the design work I was doing. I want to It's something called an emerging talent award, and I was proud of that because it allowed me to show what I had done within a larger firm that wasn't my own, and started to talk to some people about potentially joining their firm. Serendipitously, a good friend of mine from high school had moved back into the Twin Cities and said I just bought this really large house, coincidentally designed by Franklin Ellerby. And I'd worked at Ellerbe Beckett at some point. And he said, Would you help me do this and be my architect? And I think that was enough where it was my own connection and my own my own interest in that particular house that I would say, You know what? I think I can do this. I think it's a big enough project where I can actually make a little bit of money, get a better computer, get a good desk chair and do it. And high expectations, right? I think in the first six months, I pulled in 900 bucks. So it was maybe a little quicker than that. Maybe it's three months, but it's a slow start. My wife had health insurance. My kids were so you had kids school. I had kids, so it's a little bit of a risk, but a really good colleague of mine that started his firm in California before me, he was he gave me some good advice. He said the best time to start your own firm is 10 years ago, because it takes that long to to move forward and to establish yourself and really develop some practices and efficiencies so that you're being efficient. And the other piece of advice, he says, is you could join another firm and have a piece of their pie, or you could start your own firm and have your own grape. And so I guess I chose the grape, and it took 10 years to build that into something a little bit more and that, coincidentally, we are 10 years old now, and I am really glad that I did it. But it wasn't really a linear path. I think it just was a matter of circumstances and opportunity, and saying, What if I'm going to do it? I got to do it now, having
Mark D. Williams 14:44
had several architects on now, it's interesting. How many follow a similar story arc in in this one is they, you get a big job, and so you're like, This is my kind of stepping off point, and so it's okay, I'm going to I don't know what the future. But I've got one, and let's see what I can do. It's right, a leap of faith, right? And I'm sure their friends and their colleagues and their family and everyone's go. And so it gives you that courage to go, and you have one in the bank, because it cleared 900 bucks in your field, King Midas, it
Christopher Strom 15:12
felt like at least I was making something. Yeah, I think as having good relationships throughout all of your working life is so important. And so I left that firm in really good terms, and my boss, at the time said the doors open. And so I felt that it wasn't like an all or nothing thing. I could probably have come back. I also had, like I said, my wife had a good job and insurance, and I had a lot of support, and my family was really encouraging, and friends were really excited for me, and it was only because of all that support that I was really
Mark D. Williams 15:51
this episode is brought to you by adaptive. For over two years now, I've been using adaptive. It's an incredible game changer. It's AI technology based. It helps you with bill pay. And as a builder, there's very few things that anger our subs more than not being paid on time. Well, those days are gone. Not only do you know exactly where you are, but you can pay people through your ACH channels, making draws extremely quick with one click of a button, which used to take hours, my office staff is now able to generate a draw to the bank or to the client in literally seconds. The thing that I appreciate the most about adaptive is their ability to keep changing. We've given them three or four feedbacks on things that we need as builders, and within just a few months those they're rolling those things out. This is saving us hours per week and days per month in terms of our efficiency. If you're looking to upgrade your business, I'd highly recommend adaptive. You can reach out to them@adaptive.com or listen to the curious builder Podcast, episode 15 or episode 80, where we dive into their origin story. The other thing that I notice that in interviewing is a lot of times you're actually the exception of the people that I've interviewed, almost all of them have they knew someone earlier on their career. Be like you calling Marcos from our Carl and say, Hey, 10 years ago, let's do this together. Like you see a lot of it seems like a lot of firms start with two. I'd be curious your perspective on, did you ever consider partnering with someone early on, and then let's transition to your company now is like, what 10 people? That's eight, eight. And I'd love to talk about, like, when you knew it was time to hire. And we'll talk a little bit about the management, because I just think management, because I just think all businesses can relate to each other that way, for sure. So we'll start the first part of that question is, did you ever consider having a partner? Absolutely.
Christopher Strom 17:29
And I think if the situation had been right, I probably would have, like I said, I went to graduate school at UC Berkeley, and it was a great environment. I still have amazing friends and talented colleagues that were there, and I think if I would have stayed in that area, 100% I would have partnered up with many. Could have been any of them. They were just such great, great friends and colleagues. But I moved to Minnesota, and no one else wanted to and go figure. And so it took me a while, and I think I definitely met. I definitely considered joining up, joining forces with some people coming right out of Ellery Beckett. They were commercial architects that would like myself at the time. But I also realized that I didn't really know anything about residential architecture. You can say it's Oh, it's just a house. But houses have their own challenges, and residential architecture can be really challenge, challenging and difficult to do it, and so I felt like I wanted to get some experience. And I was at tea to architects, and it's an amazing firm, and really educates their staff and invests in them. That was a great way to get to know people. And I should also say that we will be coming. We are going to become a partnership in 2025 because my colleague, Eric Johnson, who is super talented in his own right. He's buying into the office and is going to become a partial owner. So that's cool. Feels great. That feels really unique. Feels great. I feel really blessed that he's interested in doing that, and I think he's really excited to take that next step into ownership. And I love working with people, but you get to the point of seven or eight people, and it's a lot, it becomes a high majority of my day that I'm advising other people on how to do their work, which I really love, but I also don't want to completely disassociate myself from drawing and being creative on my own. And so having Eric there to spread that bandwidth is really special, and I think it's we have next 10 years are going to be fantastic. It's an
Mark D. Williams 19:19
interesting perspective, just looking on it. It's the podcast. Honestly, I've talked about a lot on the podcast, these collectives we do just working with other builders and just being with people, like realizing that I'm a small building company of four people, and Now, granted, I feel like my client is a part of my team. My we're in a very social industry, because we're interacting people's lives. But from a colleague standpoint, and talking about business, it is being an entrepreneur is lonely. It's like you're on an island, yes. And the one thing that I really didn't realize what happened with this podcast is it feels a lot less lonely, because a now I listen to tons of other podcasts. I listen to other builders across the country, but now I interact with so many more people, because it's like, rather than having coffee, every once in a while, it's every week, I have a one hour interview. And. And it's, it fills up this different fuel bucket I didn't really know that I had. We're not, obviously, not literally partners in the same firm. But like, when you can start talking about stuff, you're like, I could call you end up calling people that you've had on the podcast. It ends up being like an extension of your network. Because, sure, you had this unique experience where I take about all the time, like, when was the last time you sat in a room with no distractions? And like, for one hour you talk to somebody about their profession, it's a different experience. And I've really enjoyed how it takes down some of the walls of separation that maybe only existed because we said they were there, but they don't need to be there. And so I really enjoy that opinion. And so even, like with honey Hill, we're partnered with you and a couple other architects out there. And one of the things that I really enjoyed So Sean and Tom from aspect design build came over to me, and they said, Mark, we'd really like to partner with you, because of how you market and how you carry yourself. And we just, we like, we think there could be some symmetry there. And honestly, the last year working with them, I feel like I have a partnership with another builder. And it's like, I come I'm just like, I'm have a pretty high level of energy anyway, but, man, it's like in a special shot, sure, on top of my coffee, sure, I'm just like it, because I feel like I'm a part of a team. Well, you have some momentum, yeah. And that team feels really good. And even one of our decisions, and that's what it goes, I guess we'll maybe put a pin in this, because I want to come back to this after we should explore a little bit more about your business. We'll just pin it now, because otherwise we'll go down this road. We'll never stop never stop. Let's go back, and we'll come back to honey Hill in a second. So you've got a partner buying in. Yeah? One of the things that where I first noticed you, and I want to talk about this, is and you just, I haven't read it yet. You just gave me a book when you came in about 80 years. Yeah, those that don't know what that is, it's an accessory dwelling unit in Minneapolis in particular, and a lot of cities across the country, frankly, like California in particular, we've had other builders and designers on from out there, like with land and costs, it's like, whatever we can do to get another place, either for a rental, for a family member, a studio, whatever it is, they're exploding across the country, it seems. And good, bad or indifferent. I feel like you're at like the epicenter of adu is mainly because you've gotten some really good national recognition, as well as the Star Tribune. I feel like you're always in home of the month. I feel like every other month it's Christopher straum Architects, which is great. Yeah, tell us a little bit about how you became Mr. Adu. And this is my coin. I don't know if anyone else refers to you this way, but I feel like every time I see an adu, it's like, somehow associated with you. And yeah, now it's like, in my eyes, that yellow house that you've gotten so much recognition on I can just draw it right now, and I see it so often. Am I the only one that feels that way? Or do you feel you hear that from different parts too? It
Christopher Strom 22:28
definitely was a benefit to in starting a business is to be known for something, and it happens to be something I am really passionate about. I grew up in the suburbs, but I live in the city, and I love new construction, but I also love the respecting the existing context of the City of Minneapolis, or whatever city you're building in. That's why we live there, because we love that in that environment and 80 use are a really gentle way to add density to an existing neighborhood, because you can't necessarily see them from the street. It doesn't change the streetscape. It doesn't change the character of the residential, feel of the house, adding a huge multi story building in the middle of a residential neighborhood, it's soft density, and everybody loves them. There's people with special needs, kids, aging parents, snowboard parents, people that need to work from home. Just need maybe they live in a bungalow that is beautifully scaled for 1926 but adding on to it would be really difficult to destroy that existing scale. So we did a project in Longfellow where we added an edu in the back, and it's like their new living room for their house. Then they had, when they had a baby, they could put the baby to bed, use a baby monitor and then go out and watch a movie or play video games. Yeah. So I was always interested in the concept, and in 2014 when the city of Minneapolis passed the rules, the ordinance, I was I had a relationship with through with the city because of some work on some other code issues with the some building moratoriums and issues that I was an activist for, and getting to having those relationships with city staff, they trusted me to give me some copy before it went live, to say, as a designer, how do you how are you going to read this code? What? How is this code going to manifest itself into buildings?
Mark D. Williams 24:21
I have to say, as a pause, I'm not really enthralled with government in general. Sure, I'm really impressed with that, because that's how it should be. The idea that you went to an expert, like, I'm dangerous as a builder, like, after 20 years, I'd know a little bit, but I'm not an architect. Like the idea that I could run something, and I do it all the time. So small business, we do this. I think sometimes we get having just gone through the election here and just thinking about government, I love the idea that they are reaching out to someone who knows what they're doing. Shocker alert, like you're getting an expert, right? I I'm really encouraged to hear that. Yeah, and
Christopher Strom 24:52
planning staff gets a bad rap, because they're the people that say no to everything. I've always found the
Mark D. Williams 24:56
planning commissions to be some of the best. It's usually the city council that. Doesn't know that, and then if the city council doesn't listen to the planning commission, you're like, why they even have 1am? I wrong? I'm going
Christopher Strom 25:06
to tread lightly there, because I have to work with all those people. But I will say that everybody wants to do great work, and everybody wants to do work that's good for the city. And I think if, as long as it's you have a mutual respect for the job that they have to do and respect for the fact that I need to respond to clients. I need to know what a rule means, so that if I design something for a client, I didn't miss on, misinterpret it and waste their money. Yep, because that's happened to any architect that has experience working in Minneapolis, you or any city, any city, any city. And so I guess, getting back to the adu question, because I had that interaction with planning officials in writing the ordinance, I by no means wrote it, but I did review some of the things and gave some good feedback. I basically marketed myself as a brand new firm, saying I know about this. Hadn't really built many kind of built some indirectly in previous work was a carriage house here, or a furnished garage, but suddenly I knew about it. I got a project. It's pretty heavily documented on Lake Harriet. It's this little red adu right on the street car line, where the bridge crosses into Linden Hills, and everybody walks past it in the morning on their runs. And so it was a really great project to get very small but impactful. And we made the decision to put it on the homes by architects tour, which usually are five to 9000 square foot homes, and we put this little adu on the tour, and takes people about five minutes to see it. But because it was on the tour, all of a sudden people were like, wait, I could do this. This would work in my yard. And so we it was a great way to do new construction in the city relatively quickly and build a name for ourselves. When you're getting started, there's a life cycle to projects where you have to get the clients, design the home, build the home, get it photographed, get it out there. And there's a lot of time, a couple years, couple years at least. And with ADUs, we could build a portfolio a little bit more quickly. Now, paradoxically, we while we are known for ADUs, it's probably 20% of our work, but we find them to be this amazing design discipline. It really allows us to think more critically about space and how it's used, even in our much larger projects. I
Mark D. Williams 27:20
think I think I love everything you've said. I was thinking about in my mind was racing as an entrepreneur son, but just if one of the benefits of being on an emerging market or creating an emerging market, there's huge potential, unless you're doing work that you don't know if it's going to be approved or not. The City of Minneapolis may or may not have allowed that, and you would have spent all that time, but because of that, not only on the leading edge, but you have a small window where you have the competitive edge over everyone else, and also to be able to say, Hey, I helped shape this for the city. That's a pretty bomber sales line. I was just thinking of like Elon Musk, right? So being on the forefront of Yes, right? I just compared to Elon Musk. Are you a billionaire? Trillion or two? Now, how many times does this happen? But like the idea, okay, the forefront of EV or SpaceX, or some of these things challenging industry norms, and then you have this couple year head start on everybody else. Now you don't continue to innovate, palm, BlackBerry, they're bankrupt, they're gone. Every company continues to need to evolve and change. I just think it was really unique that you were at the right place at the right time, and you had the expertise, and then you really to me own that.
Christopher Strom 28:24
Yeah, I feel really fortunate, and there's some luck in that too. But I think we also are really intentional about not treating it any differently than a regular build. We're really transparent with people right from the start, that ADUs can actually cost more per square foot than a regular house, yeah, because all the expensive stuff is distilled down and and we get calls and inquiries every week for ADUs, and lots of them. And for the most part, it's a matter of education and telling people, Hey, it's not a tricked out garage, it's a it's a second home which happens to be in your backyard. It maybe is a is an opportunity if you've ever wanted to design a custom home for yourself, but maybe you can't ever get together the resources. Here's an opportunity to do it just at a smaller scale. So it's really appealing to people to to be able to it's not for everybody still, because it's it's not low income housing, but it's an opportunity to do something at a smaller scale that is custom.
Mark D. Williams 29:19
Yeah, 100% where do you see those sales calls? Who, from an operational standpoint, you're getting? MND, are you fielding them? Who's handling all great
Christopher Strom 29:27
question. No, Rachel is our Rachel Alexander, in our office, is our all knowing inquiry and marketing person. She's really allowed me to do the work I'm supposed to be doing as a owner of a business, and so she has, she just has a really great way with people and a gentle way of being able to say no or giving him more information, even if it's not the right project for us. And so she's really the face of Ed inquiry. It sounds
Mark D. Williams 29:54
like you have some really good people, and you know, I'm gonna see if this saying resonates with you, because I'm on the opposite end of this. Which is, do you think you have a job, or do you think you have a business? And what I'm going to frame this is, if you took a six month leave of absence, would your business still operate or not absolutely so that's impressive. I would not my I have a small company, and this is my own failure. Or there's a scale sort of this. But I've looked now at the next 20 years, God Willing and health wise, if I continue to build for 20 years like I'd like to be able to build it so that my company's not dependent on me, and as I lead all sales and relationship building, that ultimately I have to build the company to enough where I was actually thinking this morning for I actually want to hire. And so it's I'm not in a position to do that, but that's gonna be my new go to question here for the next couple months, as I think about it. And it wouldn't
Christopher Strom 30:41
be super clean, because there's things that are in my head that I don't even know, to tell people. And so if I were to take a leave, it would be a little bit of a transition process. But I think over the past three or four years, I've really tried to allow staff to take as much ownership as they can. I mean, bottom line is, my name's on the door, but thinking big picture, everybody's going to bring their A game if they have some skin in it, and make some decisions. And and I'm tired of making all the decisions. It's exhausting to be the decider for everything, and so I think it's much healthier for myself and for the business if we can empower people to rise into their positions. 100%
Mark D. Williams 31:25
hearing you say that, obviously, my next line was going to be, you've clearly empowered people to do that quite quickly. For only 10 years, you've already built a business, if not a job. Here in this case, do you think in only I'll frame this in my it's very, not very rare. I think it's very rare, in my experience, that residential custom home builders sell their business. I don't know the numbers, but I bet it's one out of 10. Yep, you know. I mean, I think of a few that have done it, like vojvovich or ellemer, or a few others that I'm aware of, but a lot of them and part and I don't think it's just the name, like I really struggled with. Nobody told me at 23 years old not to name your company, Mark D Williams, custom homes. I'm like, great. That would have been helpful advice. But, and not that it was named Aspen builders or whatever mountain, mountain esque name I probably would have picked. Would it be more sellable? I still have to build a business. But right where I'm going with this is architecture firms. Do they just shut down, or do they like? What rate of attrition is there? Like, once the an architect leaves, is there a path where you could sell is it an ESOP to your employees? Is it how often does the architecture stand when the principal, or people who founded it, leave?
Christopher Strom 32:33
I think you're right. Commercially, it's more common than a residential firm, although it can happen, and I mentioned my friend John, who started his business 10 years before myself, he began that transition process quite early in thinking about not how do I get out, but really, how do I keep the business as healthy as it can be without me having to do everything? And I think your business gains more value that way. Your business is a lot more valuable if a potential buyer doesn't need you to do everything, because it's, it's honestly, it's just healthier and and so I think I have been thinking pretty intentionally about how to offload a lot of the day to day business stuff to several different staff people. I still don't, I still could do a much better job of it, but I think everybody's got a kind of a particular niche in our office that they're responsible for. They either grow into it or we switch it to some other person. But that way, it's just, it's just a stronger web. It's not just built on my feet, it's on many shoulders, right? I'm
Mark D. Williams 33:40
just the example that comes to mind is a marriage or, like a family having, there's certain responsibilities that I have that and then I'm free to do it because my wife does other things, and, like the kids benefit, because we have some cross approach there. And I think the family, some people want their business to be a family structure. Some people don't want that sort of familial or feel I'm up here. I think we're in such a high touch, emotional business that it feels much more like family than it feels like business. In my opinion, I
Christopher Strom 34:07
think you're right, and I think that's why yourself and also myself, started our businesses with our name, because people want to know who you are and who's doing the work. And we've started to shift our branding a little bit more to CSA, because I'm not doing everything, and so CSA is Christopher Strom architects, but it really is establishing that a lot of people are contributing these projects, and hopefully that'll continue to be we joke that I still have to put Christopher Strom architects underneath the CSA, because we're not IBM, we're just not that Big. We'll get there, but we are aspiring to become more universally known for the sum of the parts, rather than just myself.
Mark D. Williams 34:47
Yeah, that team approach, obviously is much stronger. Let's go back to where we were going. A little bit about the development. We were talking about honey Hill, which is a six lot acreage development and aspect design build, who I'm partnered with, Tom and John and myself. If we elected yourself, J mad and chisel architecture to be our three architecture partners out there. And it was something that we really felt, and this is something I felt very strongly on as well, is that having architecture partners helped elevate the brand of what we were trying to do. And really, we're at a time, or at least, the last six months to a year, at least for for myself, has been very slow with new home construction interest rates, the political climate has just seemed like a lot of people are like this. Hold on, and now we'll see what happens, and at least we know where the future somewhat going. Who knows? But that's not really the point. The point is like people now know, okay, this is what the next four years potentially looks like, and people just like certainty, and if that was a lot of uncertainty, just all election cycles seem every four years, I'm like, great, we got to do another election. This is six months of just like slow. But where I'm going with this is really trying to have a brand that we were partnering with architects to really elevate our brand and really create messaging around this beautiful piece of property for nature meets luxury and all these different things, to really do thoughtful designs. And I was just curious. One of the reasons that we picked you, other than we really liked you and we liked your work, was also you've done this before at Savannah oaks, which is out on the east side. And I'll let you expand on all of this stuff. My questions is, why don't more. We see it more in commercial real estate, and maybe that's because they have to go through so much zoning and so many planning over the years and commercial firms. Seems like architects are in first before they bid it out to builders, where, at least in Minnesota, builders have a very strong grasp on the housing development, if you will. And so it seems like builders have been very slow to partner with architects to elevate their development, and maybe I'm just not aware of them, and this would be my own ignorance. And so feel free to correct me. I know there's been other successful ones along the Marina St Croix and other architects that have done on developments, but speak to your experience of your observation of residential builders. Why it's been so slow to do this? Because it seems like common sense, yeah, and I know there's some risk, but well anyway, I'll just let you
Christopher Strom 37:06
have some space here. So the question is, why don't builders and developers leverage architectural partnerships early, nationwide, early and earlier
Mark D. Williams 37:13
on? I think that's the key, because they do. But it's like, they develop the land, and then they go and then they sell a property, and then they go, Hey, client, I'm just like, it seems like they could do it earlier in the process. Yep.
Christopher Strom 37:23
So not. I'm not a scholar of that nationwide, but what I can tell you about white oak savannah in the Stillwater area is that the developers there really believe in design. They have a passion for it. They have a experience working with architects and investing in that design, that level of design, and so I think they want to make money, but I think they really let the design and the quality of that design drive the work. If as soon as they start to take their eyes off that ball, and it really becomes about a just a short term transactional effort, then the quality of the development goes away, and I think they have done an outstanding job of being patient and waiting for the right opportunities and the right people to understand really what it is that's going on out there. We built one of the first houses out there, and for a long time, our house was standalone in the middle of a big prairie, and as soon as we started getting a few more filled in, it gained some momentum. And I think prospective buyers are like, Oh, I can see how driving through here, even if you didn't live there, is going to be this really interesting experience, because there's this rich architectural layer of homes out there that's going to be different than going into a development where it's the same, same thing, but just different. Final siding.
Mark D. Williams 38:49
This episode is brought to you by Pella Northland, for 20 years, I've been using Pella windows, and I couldn't be happier to call them as a business partner, a trade partner, and someone that really supports us in our quality builds. You know, we use wood windows and doors on every single one of our homes, and 98% of every home that I've ever built has been a Pella window. I've gotten to know their team here, locally, as well as nationally, and the way that they support us as a craftsman as well as they support our homeowners with their lifelong guarantee. It's actually been a game changer for me. So when people ask me who I use, I recommend Pella. If you want to hear more about Pella story, you can listen to episode one, Ryan interview Peter and Ed from Pella Northland about their journey into the Pella ownership
Christopher Strom 39:29
and nothing against vinyl siding, but it's just they really had foresight and the patience to really believe in that the design is right. They also leveraged Travis van leer, who did a lot of the he's a landscape architect.
Mark D. Williams 39:43
I actually just met him. We're working on a project together. Yeah, so he's his firm,
Christopher Strom 39:47
does great work, and they did the the layout for white oak savannah. And they, instead of doing cul de sacs, they did a drive through route, so it could be more of a Sunday afternoon drive a pair. Certainly it cost a little bit more in infrastructure, but allowed the land to be parceled out in a much more pleasing way, where houses had better view corridors from one to the next.
Mark D. Williams 40:10
As a quick tangent, I've often said that there's a number of things that influence the house, and I know I'm going to get a preach in the choir here, but obviously the client has a big say. The builder has the design into your designer architecture. The land that you build on has such a strong voice, you know, forming the architecture. And I like what you just said about how, for those out there, either developers, or would be developers, of like, how to create a story. I love stories. I love I love everything about it. It's about listening to somebody. I think that's why I even like podcasts. In some ways, it's like short form story, and that the stories stick in your brain. You mentioned color theory. I don't know anything about it, but I love color. Color leaves an impression on me, just like I think of like smells at a restaurant, or like the experience and hospitality. I'm getting a little woo here, but it's a little bit like how the experience when someone walks through one of your homes or one of your designs. I know for me, when I build a home, my favorite compliment, especially because a lot of them don't know what they're looking at, they'll say, I love the way your home feels. That to me is one of the highest compliments I can get. Because my wife often says this, and I've said this so many times, but it's true that people forget what you say, but they don't forget how you made them feel. That's right. And I think a home can do that. Home can't speak, but it can resonate a feeling absolutely. And I think a development can create a feeling. And there's artistry, there's some magic there. There's probably some luck too. And I think choosing and align yourself with people that also believe in crafting a story. I think all of it together, it comes out. Would you do you think you
Christopher Strom 41:42
I agree with that. I think the story can be made up of so many different elements. It's a mix of the goals of the client, what perspective they're coming from, what's important to them. Probably every successful architect says it's all about the client, which is true, but it's really about listening, because the client's going to tell you a lot of things, like things, listening and distilling what's most important to them, what's going to make the biggest impact. We have something called a program document that's many pages long that we give to prospective clients when we meet them and we ask them to fill it out. And if we were to sit down with a blank piece of paper and start sketching on that with all of those checklist items, we would be frozen. We can't do it. So besides just them filling this out, we have to talk to them and really understand how they talk about these spaces, why they talk about something being important, what was a memory about another piece of architecture or experience that informs how you feel about architecture or a space. And so those things like you mentioned stories, they stick in your mind as you're drawing and sketching and trying to understand what's going to resonate with them. And that in in the mix with the way that the land informs it we are we really want to figure out where the house sits super early in the design process, because it has to do with we're in Minnesota. When are we going to get natural light into this home? How are you going to get the course of the sun, or the path of the sun over the course of the day? How can we leverage day lighting so that you're not always relying on artificial light? All those kind of things that maybe a client doesn't come in and say, do that for me, those things that we really care about and are passionate about, are going to totally inform about the feel of the house and reinforce the goals that they had, that they did bring to you. And
Mark D. Williams 43:29
I think a lot of times, this is where surrounding yourself with different experts or different I like, I like, a diverse team, because everyone has a voice. Yeah, I've often said that Pavarotti, famous tenor singer, right? One of the loudest, most beautiful voices of all time, right? You give me 100 people singing, you're not even gonna hear Pavarotti. It's true. And I think of all of our partners, the client, the architect, the land, our cabinet shop, our trimmer, our painter, there's just so many collaborative things together. I really, I think I've always loved assembling a team. I said earlier on that I feel like I'm been a lone solar procurer. But I think by building a home, you assemble this kind of this one time team, and then so you have this, this really cool chemistry with that one team. And of course, you try to, but every time you do it with a different quote team. For you, it's a different builder, a different client. You're the one concept, but even your team is changing. I look back at my team and how it's changed even the last year, but I look back at Christmas photos as they're coming up, and I've looked at how my team changes and different people, personalities, and yeah, anyway, it's just interesting to look back. And maybe it informs your future, but it's more. Maybe it's this nostalgia where you, wow, I you don't often see your own evolvement because you're looking the mirror every day in this and but then others looking on would be like, oh, yeah, your career has gone, you know, this way, or whichever way it's going, and
Christopher Strom 44:50
it makes it more fun. There's some things to be said about a team being, oh,
Mark D. Williams 44:54
that's the Yeah, no, it's noon in excels here. Oh, that's the so. If you can't hear that on the microphone, there's a Blair horn that goes off every day at noon that was to call the fishermen off the lake in back in the 1800s or 1900 now, evidently, they just do it to let you know it's time to go walk down the street and get a taco,
Christopher Strom 45:15
learning something every day
Mark D. Williams 45:18
there's no tornadoes. Chris,
Christopher Strom 45:21
I totally forgot what I was gonna say. Oh, we were talking about teams. I think in our office, the 10 years we've had it, we have the best team we've ever had. It's a fantastic group. People love coming to the office every day, but you're right, that team potentially will change over time, and within each project, the team changes. We might work with a contractor more than once, but chances are they're going to change from month to month. We really like the collaboration opportunities that can inform how a project develops. One thing we that was important to me over the last five years is building a really collaborative relationship with the interior design team. We can do interiors. We enjoy some of that work, but by the time a homeowner is done, by the time a homeowner spent a lot of time with us on the shell of the house, they're really probably welcoming some new blood, some new ideas. And so bringing that interior design team in early so that we can really collaborate and outline, like, who's got what part of the scope, it just makes it a much richer project, much more interesting, and it's more fun. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 46:30
there's more layers to it, yeah, and so different and big part of my job. And I don't know if you feel this way, but I suspect you would if people come to me as the builder, first we do a 15 minute phone call, I do a one hour sit down, and after that, it's straight to for us a design retainer. And that design retainer is we're going to interview one or two architecture partners, one or two interior designers, and my job is to assemble the team. And this football analogy, I'm the general manager. Sure. We got to get a team. We're not going anywhere until we get a team. Sure. And maybe a lot of it, for me, honestly, is there's some financial aspect. But really, if you're picking design and architecture partners that are the similar strata, it's more about personality. It is. And I'm looking at the client, and I like a diverse maybe the architecture group fits this personality trait, and I just want to assemble the team that is going to be the most successful, not only for us, but also for the client, the whole experience, right? And it's not. And sometimes you just know, like, the first time you meet and be like, Okay, I'm not. There's no sense in even interviewing other people like, this is your person. And I often will tell the client like, this is, you know, we're interviewing with Christopher strong. He's the right guy for this. If you as the client feel that I'm wrong in that, please. You know, we have to have open communication, like, let me know, right? And then I don't think I've ever had a client, you know, say, because I there's still their choice. We could interview multiple ones, but usually the person I match make them with, okay, yeah, that's the one. And then in there, looking to me, in that sense, I have other relationships, like directing it, right? It's not really an arranged marriage, but it says a potential. There's a lot of
Christopher Strom 47:55
subjective criteria that it's just a feeling. In some ways, sometimes it has to do with the experience of the partnership that you have. But yeah, it's matchmaking, for
Mark D. Williams 48:05
sure. Yeah. Anyway, one thing I was going to comment about the developer out in Savannah hills, and for those that would be developers out there, is it sounds like they had the unique ability to be patient. It's hard sometimes when the juice is turning and every month, whatever, however big your project is, and that's either profit going out the window or your own equity going out. It's hard, so I know it's easy. I don't know how long Savannah Oaks has been under, you know, development or construction, but a couple years, right? Oh, more
Christopher Strom 48:33
than that, it's, I was out there in 2019 oh, wow, for a group bonfire with industry partners. And so it was, it was pre COVID, for sure. And so are there lots? Are there still lots left? There are so I think the total is 30. They had a phase one and a phase two. And I think they would, they could comment more on on the financing, how to structure it so that being patient was not a huge the business loss, but, but they had the first half of the lots came open first, so putting in the infrastructure and road and everything only happened to half the development, and once that had some density of new homes, they developed the second half and could carry that those infrastructure costs over the second part. Yeah, they were patient. I'm sure I know that they had, they were tempted to do a couple of spec homes just to get something going out there. And there was even some design work to do that. But I think, I think one of our first project out there was pretty good timing for them, because it allowed a ton of it gave them a ton of photography to market. That's
Mark D. Williams 49:39
iconic. It's that black on right? It's that black on the big prairie. It's actually a photograph. It that way. I actually wrote my note down. I actually have not driven through it. So I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get Tom and Sean and do we'll do a field trip day and drive out there, yeah, and just go through it. But it's so funny because I saw an imagery full page spread, I feel like I've seen that house 1000 times, and
Christopher Strom 49:57
Anderson Windows is the partner out there. And they have leveraged that home over and over and over and over again, because I think it's a nice house, but a great house, but the landscape is just it's drinking it's unbelievably beautiful and very wide open. I
Mark D. Williams 50:14
think it when I look at it, you're right. The home is beautiful that you designed. But I think what calls to me is it feels like there's a feeling of wonder or wanderlust or travel, there's something about it that just feels very freeing and open and anyway, it's just romantic. I guess it's probably a better way, yeah, to sum it up, yeah. So definitely good. Who took the photography on that spacecraft?
Christopher Strom 50:34
Did a great job. Yeah, yeah. It was, yeah. They had their best, their crack, their a team on that. I believe. All
Mark D. Williams 50:41
right, I love it. We've got about seven minutes left here. What is, how have you navigated this last year? It's been slow for us. Have you noticed, kind of your pulse on the market? Design wise, you're on the front I always know that things are going to be slow. When designs slow down, I know I'm gonna have a slow down about six months to a year after that, because for you, you're on the front end. Sure, how do you balance the cash flow of your job, or jobs that you take? How do you operate your business? Or what do you look at? I know I need so many meetings that lead to so many designs, and then those designs, we work through them, and I know there's some similarities, but what do you see in terms of timing, in terms of keeping your business operational? That's
Christopher Strom 51:20
a great question. We joke that a lot of it is excusing the force because it's it's so unpredictable in some ways, even when you think you have a full slate of projects that are humming along, things happen. We just had a project in the western suburbs that went on hold because the home next to them that was finished being built is so out of scale and huge, it just is going to loom over this pretty modest project that we're doing for them, and they're just not sure they they want to do it, and we had no inkling that was going to potentially happen. But we have to respect that they got to feel right about moving forward with the construction documents and the start of construction. So we need to pause. And so when you have that, we try to maintain three to six month backlog. It's hard to do the larger your staff is, because you got to keep so many bodies busy. But we try to be really upfront with people that when we're taking on a project, we usually can't start right away. If it's something where we also try to gage their flexibility, and we write out a fairly detailed design schedule for them ahead of time that usually spaces design meetings three or four weeks apart, so they can get an idea about when they're getting work backwards from getting in the ground. Yep, and it's it's conservative. It's trying to be realistic with people take vacations and there's holidays, and you have to assume that perhaps people will change their mind on things. Are they just someone's going to have a baby, so they need to take a break for 699, months to do that. And but by having that backlog and an ability to say, You know what, we're going to start by March, but if we get a little bit of a window of time we can start earlier, and it's just really being upfront with people and transparent about we're a small business. We're trying to keep everybody busy. But we also, as in the design process, we try to also tell people we have a lot of projects under construction. If there's an issue with those, we have to deal with it immediately. And you would want the same if your house is under construction with residential clients, as I'm sure you know, it's unusual that people have a lot of knowledge about the process, unless they built a home or two before. And we do get some of those clients. But for most people, it's an educational experience. Every time I
Mark D. Williams 53:36
find that so much of our job becomes the more I look back at the issues I've ever had, or almost all that comes down to education and informing our client or the team and setting expectations early on. Yes, I don't know why I mentioned earlier about starting my business like flying an airplane and then building it on the fly. And builders, it's I'm not unique in this. I think builders in general do this, and honestly, the residential construction does this at large is a major problem, and it's only been the last couple of years, and part of it is the client committing to you too. Where I'm going with this is client comes in and they say, we'd like to know how much it costs. And it's like the grocery analogy, how much does your grocery cost? What's in your bag? Until you tell me, how can I tell you? Right? And people want to know your per square foot number, and it's fine, because they don't know what other question to ask. There's 1000 variables that are going to affect that. I can give you ranges, but even those don't really help you, right? And it really puts a lot of stress on us. We're trying to and I get why they ask it, like, can we afford this house, right? But unless you do a little bit of design work so that we can rough, just get some and then the thing, the beautiful thing about it is usually, when people design something, they fall in love with it. And typically, if you love something, you figure out a way to make it happen. Sure, and you can lean on your partners, the architect partners, the builder partners, the design partners, to help you get there. But I have found that if we can get the client to really make the decision on the front end, the committee. Limit. This is the team we're going to work with. Their experience is so much better because now we can go through it. We can design the home, we can price out the home. We can select everything in it, do a final price that's we can eliminate a lot of the change orders. We can and it's like telling the client like, I can disappoint you once, or I can disappoint you 100 times. Which one would you prefer? Yeah, obviously they're going to say once, and then once is it's going to take a little longer on the front nobody, in general, I'm trying to change this. Nobody, not that I'm the authority on this, but nobody talks about how long it takes in design, because it used to be, I remember clearly, if this was our first meeting, Chris, I'd be like, Okay, we'll have drawings in the next two to three weeks. Well, don't worry about selections. We'll make them while we're building it. We got to get in for permit. My number one thing was to get a shovel in the ground. Yep, and I understand the need, or why you want to do that from a financial standpoint, but man, it really sets up the project for failure, and we've done it. That's the thing. So many builders out there that listen to us know exactly what I'm talking about, because we've done hundreds like that in our career, but it is such a better way to slow down. But that starts with me, the first meeting. That starts with you saying that this is going to take a little while. And honestly, a lot of clients, I've heard some clients that they'll say, I've got to make and it's you got to slow them down. Say, do you want to rush this decision? It's a little bit like a shock. I never use analogy, but I'm going to now like a shotgun marriage. You're going to spend a little time dating and figuring out, is this the prison you want to be married with, right? And that's really what the design retainer is right, right? Anyway, I don't know how we find that a
Christopher Strom 56:24
lot, and I think we've gotten established enough where people aren't expecting to go fast, but they don't really know what's normal, agreed, right? So trying to give them a conservative estimate of time that we can meet, maybe exceed or beat, but that we can meet, and then also telling them, Look, if you take a little bit more time to get the right team together and give yourself some grace in making these decisions, because there's 1000 of them, you're never going to look back in two years and say, Man, I'm really glad we rushed through and got done six months before we thought. You just won't. In the very short term, you'd be like, boy, it's Christmas. I really wish I was in the house, but in the end, you're going to be so much happier that you actually gave yourself some time. The process, I'm not going to lie, it can be really challenging. It can involve some priority prioritization and making some trade offs, but it should be fun, and the way to have fun is not to put yourself through so much stress that you have to make decisions in a rushed way 100%
Mark D. Williams 57:27
Yeah, yeah. As we come in for a landing on a personal nature, I usually like to ask this question, are you a book reader? What do you like to listen to? What do you do for recharging your battery when you're not at
Christopher Strom 57:36
work? Yeah, that's right. Now I have two teenage sons who are super into their friends and school, and they're both tennis players, and we're going into a tennis tournament this weekend. So I spent a lot of time shuttling them to that, which I love tennis. Did you play fast? I did, yeah, not as good as they do, but I really enjoy the sport and watch it, and they they're really great and, and so we spent a lot of time with that. We'd also just adopted a puppy, so we're in the throes of becoming dog owners again, and that's really fun for the family. But yeah, a lot of family time being outside and, and just kind of, you know, it's only going to be a few years before we're empty nesters, and so we're just really trying to lean into that.
Mark D. Williams 58:19
Yeah, that's amazing, amazing. We'll have everything in the show notes of where people can find you across the country. One thing I forgot to ask you was, and I asked this to all our architecture partners, what percent of your work is in the state of Minnesota versus out state?
Christopher Strom 58:31
It's almost all in Minnesota. We do western Wisconsin is pretty common. We'd love to do more out state work, but I think it comes down to the partnerships, we'd have to really know who we were working for and have some confidence that the construction quality is going to be where it is. But if someone's got one in veil that wants to fly me out and yeah, I could do some skiing. Let's do that.
Mark D. Williams 58:56
Yeah, I would love to consult on the powder, so I could be your right hand man. All right, I love it. Traditionally, it's right after a big snow storm, we like to go, yeah, absolutely. Fresh pile. Fresh pile. I have. We used to have a cabin out Montana, and we used to have this wood sign that said, no friends on a powder day. I used to invite all a bunch of high school friends and college friends, and we literally lived up to it. It's like, on a powder day like these don't come along very well, you guys. We'll see it. We'll see at the car at four o'clock, you know. And if you can't keep up, we'll see at the lodge at noon. We're going, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. I appreciate your time coming on, yeah,
Christopher Strom 59:27
thanks for having me. I think you really got a special thing going with this podcast, and think it's really good for the industry. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 59:32
I'm loving it. I appreciate everyone coming on, and I'll have everything in the show notes, and away we go. Awesome. We're excited to announce that the curious builder collectives are going into three other states. For those not familiar with what the collective is, it lives between what the contractor coalition is and a builder 20 group. What we do in each state is we have a group of 25 to 30 builders that get in a room and you break up into groups of nine. You spend 45 minutes talking. Talking about a set topic, whether it's branding, marketing, contracts, whatever that set topic is for that day. And then you talk for 45 minutes, you get up, you mix up the groups, and you do it again, and you're out of there. You'll be out in under three hours. We're going to be going to Phoenix Arizona. Brad Levitt is going to be leading a curious collective in Phoenix, Arizona. We are going to San Antonio. We've got David and Angela Penske from Penske homes, leading a group down there. And we have Brad Robinson and Vince Longo in Atlanta, Georgia, also leading a collective, as well as obviously me in Minnesota as well for our second annual collective. So you're interested in collaborating with other builders. If you really want to dive deep on your business in a person to person relationship, ask a lot of questions. The collectives are for you. We also have in Minnesota interior design collective as well as the architect collective. Check out the Events page at the cures builder podcast.com thanks for tuning in the cures builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in. You.
This episode is sponsored by:
