We recently connected with Todd Mather and have shared our conversation below.
Todd, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
After three general education-years at the University of Utah with some interest in both English and in cartography, I found myself listening to the Dean of Architecture once a week for an hour. His interesting topics were followed by a written assignment topic due at the following week’s class. “What was your first memory of interaction with architecture as a child?”
Flooding my open mind was first the cracking of my older (high-school aged) brother’s textbook, “History of Western Art”. And what I remembered was this: my astonishment and bewilderment upon coming across pre-war art and architecture chapter that featured Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. At 24 years old, I’d rediscovered my long-buried enamor for architecture and design.
Pushing past this recollection, I then found myself diving into other memories of this pre-teenager consuming his mother’s formal dining room for what must have been months with drawings on graph paper and free-hand sketches of homes – never a commercial building in mind, mind you. Since asking my mother of this years later, she also has vague memories of her inability to host dinner parties for a time due to this adolescent’s obsession.
Had one wish, I’d still have that essay written over a quarter century ago. I’m sure it was eloquent! Certainly, looking upon it now having been an architect for twenty years and running a firm by my own name, it would be insightful and plain fun to reread. For now, I can only imagine what I wrote.
Since the last word of that short but life-changing essay was scripted, the trajectory of not only my education and forthcoming career was thrown in a direction I had never expected just a few days prior, but also my life, lifestyle and outlook on humanity.
I completed my graduate degree with the honor of “Traveling Fellow” in 1996.
Having worked for several fantastic firms of all sizes, focuses, and staffing from Utah to California, I launched “Todd Gordon Mather Architect” in 2015. This was a direct result of the event just two days prior when one of my best friends sadly died of cancer. He was five weeks younger than me at age 45. I believe the words I used to depart my last job were, “I cannot live your dream any longer; I must live mine now.”
My life has been a representation of that decision, as well. My passion is my work. My work is my craft, My craft is my passion. Making a good living, as a direct consequence of this cycle, has been sidelined only by my success and satisfaction in all I do both in and out of the office.
My lifestyle is not focused on architecture but is reflective of a solid understanding of all that’s around me in my world. Pushing boundaries with sports, with playing saxophone and with a new-found pleasure in reading non-fiction drives me to better my architecture and those lives who get to inhabit it. Humanity is bettered by good design, good buildings, and good people.
I often reinforce in my clients the joy and “fun” this effort should be for them – for all of us – that they have the unique opportunity in designing a custom home. Perhaps one-one thousandth of one percent of Americans (probably less!) get the chance to design and build a house for themselves in their lifetime. I am dedicated each day to making the process as enjoyable and excited for them as possible. I feel honored working closely with my clients to realize their collective dreams, discovering “design” together as I did in that high school tome as an adolescent.
I’ve realized over the decades of practicing architecture – the passion that is such an amazing force in my life – that I’m one of the “lucky ones”. I found my calling. I found my passion. It fulfills me. I do what I love and it pays the bills. How else could you define success?
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I moved to the north shore of Lake Tahoe in 2002 after a short time self-employed was grounded by the events of 9/11 when all my clients just …stopped. I needed a job and found myself in the Sierra Nevada, having grown up in Park City, Utah and cut my architectural teeth in snow country. My first project was a new home and a remodel addition on two adjacent Old Town Park City lots for a friend with whom I was riding to college with. His mother was my first employer at the locally-renowned pizza parlor.
I was always interested in bettering my sketching and the opportunity was found when in 1996 I received the U of U Traveling Fellowship where I traveled throughout northern and central Italy for three weeks with a camera and a sketchbook. The camera there for my future required slideshow presentation to the school, and with only one sketchbook I was sure I would be disappointed in the future not having it. So I took a second and duplicated most all my sketches. One was left at the University library and the other in my personal library.
Originally, I entered the U of U on a music scholarship. However, realizing my devotion to practicing lacked, and my unlikely happiness ever to be found as a music teacher, I quit my higher education for a year. However, I’ve been playing tenor saxophone since high school. The appeal is found in the satisfaction of this team sport of musicians termed a “band”. Winning that game in a club or a show as a group is always fun. For the last eight years, me and my two horn-players from my last band, making up our horn section, play about twenty times per year with The Blues Monsters. My summer travel and other life events are planned around our gig dates.
I am the Chair of the Placer County/Tahoe Basin Design Review committee for which we review the design of each and every commercial building and multi-family building around the north shore of Lake Tahoe. This is a volunteer position for which I’ve been involved for nearly a decade as community service. This comes on the heels of my work as a Historic District Commissioner in Park City, Utah where we would review every building design/redesign in Park City’s U.S. Historic District.
Having designed a new-construction award-winning A-frame on Tahoe’s West Shore, my daughter and I started an A-frame division of my architecture firm. For about a year, I received two calls a month requesting to purchase the same custom plans for my client. With each phone call ending in a 30-minute, “No, they’re not…”, I realized the great public interest in this home niche but also that the amount of time I’d spent on the phone away from my clients and their projects, was staggering when placing a cost per hour on myself. Hence, it was NECESSARY to revise the design into several sizes and start a new online business. Thus, “A-Frame Rising”. To date we’ve sold about twenty A-frames and have around five under construction today.
I’ve always been building my architecture library even when a very poor self-funded architecture student. I’ve found books to be such a valuable commodity. I’d always hoped to be published for my work, always wondering if it was good enough, unique enough. Was it Architecture (with a capital “A”)? While many of my homes have now been in published magazines and have won local, national and international awards, I’d never been asked to be published in a BOOK. In two weeks, my staff and I along with friends and associates will be gathering in a swanky design studio in downtown Los Angeles for the book release party. As part of this beautifully curated and bright orange book, my entourage will be joined by 19 other California architects and their ‘people’. This is truly a wonderful mark in my career and I am honored to be included.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The ability to listen carefully to my clients is paramount to my success. I have been asked to relieve a dozen architects over the years because “they don’t listen”. That’s twelve projects – nearly one every other year – for which architects have been fired for not simply hearing their client’s wishes, goals and dreams.
With that, practicing patience every day is seminal to the success of a residential architect in my opinion. I am able to listen and work with my clients to find what IT is for them and their home designs. Most of my clients have no experience with designing a home, or building a home. They know neither the proper terminology nor how to express spatial or design ideas. Working with them slowly and with patience builds respect between us and allows them to trust me on our path together.
Being out on jobsites and working through designing homes from start to finish has been critical to my knowledge of construction and the permitting processes. Having started my career in Park City, Utah with my first project as a new home for a buddy of mine and a remodel/addition to his family’s home next door showed me from the onset of my architecture practice all the steps required to design a home.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
As with most passionate professionals, finding a balance with one’s work-life is important. I try to balance my workday with some exercise if only walking through town to get to my office, having left my car at my favorite local cafe. Rising early in the morning to run through my yoga-stretching routine helps ease into my day.
Of course, delicious coffee in the morning, lunch breaks – often out – and leaving the office by 5 or 6pm allows for good home time or happy hour on the porch.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.TGMArchitect.com
- Instagram: @toddmather
- Facebook: Todd Gordon Mather Architect
- Linkedin: Todd Mather, AIA, NCARB
Image Credits
Vance Fox Sinead Hastings Melissa Kelsey Stephanie Russo
