Full Service Architecture
For homeowners with ambitious projects
You know this property has potential. You just need someone who can see the finished version before anyone else can, and know how to get it there. You've probably already been told it's too complicated, too expensive, or too risky. That's usually when I get called. I learn how you live and what you need, translate that into something you can see and react to, and navigate every constraint and approval to get it built. You stay in control of the decisions that matter. I handle everything else.
Explore architecture servicesRisk & Strategy Consulting
For developers who need expert eyes
I review drawings, identify coordination gaps, and flag risk before it costs you time or money. Pre-construction risk audits, third party plan reviews, and construction phase oversight. I've been on the development side. I know how decisions get made, where projects drift, and what it costs when nobody catches it early. I'm the person who catches it early.
Explore consulting servicesSelected Work
Residential Addition · Completed
Riverview Addition
Tight suburban lot, historic 1790s home, phased construction while owners remained in residence, and support-of-excavation requirements not typically seen in residential projects. The owners stayed in residence throughout construction.
Historic Residential Addition · In Progress
Oceanfront Addition & Renovation
Registered 1800s Queen Anne on a sloping oceanfront site with a complex flood zone condition requiring persistent technical advocacy and strategic regulatory sequencing. Still in progress — this one is the long game.
© Dave Corrigan Photography
Commercial Tenant Fit-Out · Completed
SugaringNYC Studio
First-time commercial buildout with demanding landlord coordination, permitting hurdles, and a client who needed to stay focused on her business while we handled everything else.
Residential Interior & Renovation · Completed
Westwood Renovation & Basement Fit-Out
Two-phase engagement: interior architecture for an ongoing renovation, then a return engagement to design and build out the basement with existing MEP coordination challenges.
"Design is not just aesthetic. It is strategy."
I started this practice for a specific kind of client and a specific kind of project. The property with real potential and real obstacles. The renovation everyone said was too complicated. Those are the projects I'm drawn to, and where I do my best work.
I don't have a signature style I'm trying to express. Every project has its own rules — the site, the house, the way you live. I design from those.
My career has taken me across every side of the table. As an architect at Gensler working on complex commercial projects, embedded in development and consultant teams on major Boston projects, and as an in-house architect for commercial and residential developers. That combination gave me something most architects don't have: a firsthand understanding of what's actually at stake when a project goes sideways.
Eventually I wanted to bring all of that to work that felt more personal. Properties and projects that actually meant something to the people building them.
That systems thinking doesn't just apply to projects I design. Developers and investment groups hire me as a technical second set of eyes, drawing coordination, pre-construction risk audits, third party plan reviews, finding coordination gaps, flagging risk, identifying what will cause problems during construction. Different context, same instinct.
Get in touchLet's talk about your project.
Schedule a free 15 minute callinfo@sam-grace.com
617.766.5520
867 Boylston St, Suite 500
Boston, MA 02116