Morningside Architects LLP

We worked with Morningside Architects and specifically Gail Schorre on our recent Harvey replacement home. We went to her with a design to scale on printer paper. After several meetings and about 4 months of changes and refinements, we had a working design to send to our builder Lucas Craftsmanship for an initial quote. After that was accepted, she finalized the design, keeping in mind our wishes, needs and lifestyle. We moved in a couple of months ago and love everything about it. It’s Craftsman style, not a design you see often in Bellaire. She checked all of the city of Bellaire’s many rules and requirements and we made it through the permit process without a single question or issue. I highly recommend Gail and she definitely knows how to design a beautiful home.

I chose to hire Morningside Architects to help me plan for a home renovation & addition. Our relationship started with an at home meeting so they could get a feel of my existing space and begin thinking through ideas and solutions to my "problems." I found that Gail and her team at Morningside to all be very professional, while creating somewhat of a familiar connection to my home; taking into account the needs of myself, pets and future planning for my space. Being able to bounce off ideas and design choices with a qualified professional can be rare in this industry. Morningside was open to hearing my "silly" ideas and provided some good insight as to how to accomplish them. The process of becoming a client is very transparent and straightforward. Their contract lists clearly the costs involved, so you will be able to plan budget accordingly. Morningside is also very flexible to working with your needs as a client, either simply providing a plan or working closely with a chosen designer and contractor. They do it all!

Refreshing working with a professional, friendly, attentive group who truly understands the clients needs. We look forward to our continued relationship working together.

You know you love your architect when you can fully imagine designing another house with them. Designing and building our "Cove House" (as listed on Morningside's website) in Galveston with Gail Schorre was a delight. Gail listened to our ideas and came back with a compelling initial design in record time. She maximized our wonderful setting and cleverly designed the house to work in the future as the lots around us got developed. Now, years later as someone is finally building next door, we appreciate her design even more. Gail was open and enthusiastic about my ideas to make our bay house fun and unique. Most importantly, she worked quickly and efficiently and respected our budgetary guidelines. She worked well with directing our builder as well as working in suggestions from my wonderful designer Lisa McCollam. When something needed her immediate attention as we were building, Gail was always available and responsive. Her solutions to the typical problems that arose always made the design even better...incredible! Traveling together back and forth to Galveston as we worked on our house gave me the opportunity to spend time with Gail, and she is just a lovely, fun person to be with. The pictures on the website are great, but truly cannot convey what a gorgeous, elegant and fun house she designed for us. An enthusiastic 'thumbs up' for Gail Schorre and Morningside Architects!

When choosing an architect, I found Gail through my research into the Not So Big House concept - designing homes that are to human scale and feel like a home, without a lot of wasted space and have a really efficient floorplan. Having rented a more typical Houston house for three years, I knew all the things I didn't want to live with anymore and had ideas for how I'd like our new home to work. Gail listened and took time to understand what was important and why, and one of the things I enjoyed most about our new home was the collaboration with her in designing the space to ensure that it would work well every day for my family. Two years of living here later, I still walk around smiling at the details and how well the house works for us as a family. And I love that our house is truly unique. Guests make frequent remarks on how much they enjoy the space and seem to notice new aspects of the house with each visit. Gail had great ideas to really maximize the space and ensured that each room has something special about it. This includes architectural details that are subtle and seem unremarkable, but actually provide a real sense of permanency, solidity and soul - which is not always easy to do in new construction. Gail delivered exactly what we wanted - a truly custom home which not only works for our family at the moment, but will allow us to grow in place, with enough garden space for a pool plus play area. I feel like Gail really put herself into our shoes and understood our needs and wants, rather than just designing another generic home with features we didn't need or care about. In summary, we love our home and thoroughly recommend Gail and the team at Morningside Architects.

We embarked on a major home renovation and addition in the historic district of the Heights in Houston back in the fall of 2014. We knew it would be a challenging project with the regulations surrounding a historic home. I met with Gail at Morningside Architects and knew immediately she was the right person for the job. She was knowledgeable, creative, easy to work with, and really listened to what our vision and dream was. She had her work cut out for her going back and forth with the city, including the tight deadlines that were required with the historic commission and getting the project approved in a timely fashion. She worked extremely hard and was constantly in communication with me with the city requirements. She got our plans submitted to the city in a month so that we wouldn't miss our deadline! Gail had to come up with several clever and creative solutions each time the city came back with a restriction to what we wanted to achieve. The end result was that some of those workarounds are some of our favorite features of the house! I cannot recommend Gail and Morningside Architects enough. Her attention to detail and follow-through really impressed me, especially in a project that was complicated with outside restrictions and on a tight time-table. Her ability to work through roadblocks, maintain communication, and really listen to her client truly made it a pleasure. And we got our dream forever home, beautifully architected, at the end of it! The addition blends in beautifully with the original portion of the house and is in keeping with the style of the Heights. I have recommended Gail to several of my friends in the Heights and West University area. It truly was a pleasure working with her!!

Morningside Architects exceeded our expectations for our Heights bungalow renovation/addition. Gail and Marie were attentive to our requests and needs for how we wanted our house to look, feel and transform, and had the knowledge and experience to develop the project in accordance with Houston Historic Preservation guidelines and timeframe. Gail and Marie promote a collaborative effort when designing and developing the project and pay attention to every detail. If we ever do another house renovation, we will definitely call Morningside again.

Gail, the lead architect, seemed polite and professional. We began to work on a residential addition and noticed we were paying a lot of money with her invoices. We inquired about the increase in cost even without making changes to our initial plans and design. The high cost was explained away and validated. Eventually, we discussed the plans and cost with other architects and our concerns were correct. We were being overcharged. Also, a mistake was found in the plans by our new architect. Gail did not wish to correct her error in calculation without more pay. She then referred to a paragraph in our contract stating that either of us can terminate our agreement at any point. She terminated it! Left us to have someone else fix her wrongdoing even when she had already been paid for that portion of the work. Very disappointing!

After looking at many many homes for sale over years and years my husband and I came to the conclusion that the houses we were looking at just didn’t fit our life style. I remember thinking in each house how I would have done things differently. For the money we were planning to spend we wanted a home that fit our family perfectly. We needed an architect to help us bring our ideas to life. Our contractor was not too keen on the idea of working with an architect and tried to convince us that we didn’t need one. I had some experiences in the past with contractors talking me out of my ideas. I had given in and went with their suggestions over my own ideas, and I ended up regretting it. They just didn’t take the time to understand why I wanted what I did. Gail, from Morningside Architects,spent time learning what would work for us as a family and she helped us bring that to life. She asked questions about our family, got to know how we functioned and what was important to us. She helped us put our money to work on the little details that would make our home special to us. She understood that for us function took precedent over form, yet she managed to include every thing we wanted in an absolutely beautiful way that reflected a style that I didn’t even know was my own. Beyond the actual design of the home, Gail worked during the construction phase to be sure the plans we so meticulously made became reality. She was able to translate our vision to our contractor and assist him in trouble shooting any issues that came up. Gail’s interactions with us and everyone who worked on our home were professional and respectful. It was obvious to us that she had a very good reputation in the industry and had earned the respect of everyone she worked with. My husband and I had heard so many couples talk negatively about their experience building a home and we were concerned. As I sit here at my built-in desk reflecting on the process and product, I can hear my dog’s exit through their automatic dog door to join our children and their friends in our park like yard and my husband welding in his custom garage, and I could not be more content. I am thrilled with the decision we made to work with Morningside Architects. There is no other house in existence that would work for our family like this one. I can truly say that we had a great time planning our home, watching it develop and living in it for the past four years. It is a time I will always cherish. Thank you, Gail.

I have been in the remodeling and construction industry for 15 years and have worked with many designers and architects. We have had the privilege of working with Gail Schorre and Morningside Architects on numerous projects. Their level of service, professionalism, and skill is unparalleled. Gail has the rare capability of understanding the needs of the client and builder in order to construct a highly functional and beautiful project. She is very skilled at solving spatial challenges which are common to remodeling projects and also understands how to meet the clients' budget requirements. Morningside Architects understands how to maneuver a project in a way to keep all parties happy which is so valuable to me as a builder.

Working with Morningside Architects made all the difference in our remodeling project. Since my dad was an architect, I knew how important it was to get an architect to draw up the plans, but I was unprepared for the creativity that Gail Schorre brought to the project. As she toured our small house, she got us talking about what worked for us and what didn't. She thought up some creative uses for space that I would never have imagined. At the time, I was hard pressed to think of anything I liked about our house, other than the location. Now I am in love with it! Almost every week I see a little something and fall in love with my house all over again. We ended up removing the tiny master bath & closet and adding on an addition to the back, which consisted of a new master bath, walk-in closet and space for my treadmill and desk. This freed up room in the master bedroom. One closet was turned into a reading nook -- such a treat. We gutted and re-did the kitchen. The footprint was mostly the same, but the usable storage space was about doubled. We added in some small projects like refinishing (and adding some) hardwood floors throughout the house that made a lot of difference. Working with the Morningside team was great. They were always accessible for questions and helped me turn some of my ideas into workable solutions. They were very encouraging and open to my suggestions. It was a real working partnership. They worked efficiently and we were ready to start construction before I knew it. The contractor they recommended was the best, such a great person to work with, and who hired excellent subcontractors. We lived in our home during the remodeling (even through whole-house floor refinishing), and everyone was very considerate of us. Working with Morningside Architects was a great investment in our remodeling project, because our house now truly works with the way we live.

I was referred by a friend for a remodel project for my home. Their initial designs were thoughtfully put together and flowed really well. I had numerous requests as well as limitations given the size of my lot and budget. They provided me with several schematic versions to choose from. I have made changes to the original plans and they have been very helpful in this process as I have never done a remodel before. Gail and her team have been very patient with me in addition to be extremely knowledgable about all aspects of architecture and design. I know that my project is not the largest nor the most exciting from an architectural standpoint, however, they have been so wonderful to work with despite this! I would definitely recommend them for your project. They really know what they are doing and are quite talented.