Gary A Burke, Architect - Grass Valley, California

Douglas Mower

Hello all, my name is Douglas Mower, I'm a General contractor in the Northern California area and love working with Gary Burke Architect. He is very knowledgeable and plays well with the building department. It's very important to understand what the county building department is going to want/need on the plans to speed the process toward a building permit. Gary is good at that and works well with the builder to make it all happen. I highly recommend Gary.

Tim Drainville

I use Gary often as my design professional both in my company's commercial & personal residential projects. He brings a level of ingenuity and design experience combined with an extensive knowledge of code that I rely on. All while cost affective. I highly recommend him to anyone needing an architect.

Jack C

We were so excited to build our first home—a dream project—and even more thrilled to hire an architect to help bring it to life. As a lifelong lover of architecture, I couldn’t wait to see what a professional could add to the design. Unfortunately, the experience with Gary was deeply frustrating and disappointing.

From the start, I emphasized two clear priorities: a fixed budget and a tight timeline. Gary assured me he could deliver, but it took three months—far longer than the “few weeks” promised—to produce plans whose bids came in over 60% beyond our budget. In the process, Gary managed to hammer both my budget and my timeline, leaving me scrambling to salvage the project.

The design itself was the core problem: overly complex, expensive to build, and completely misaligned with my repeated request for something simple yet architecturally interesting. When the timeline was already strained, I had to step in and simplify the design myself. While Gary fast-tracked the revisions (even working on his anniversary), he charged me another $5,000—essentially billing me to fix issues of his own making.

Beyond the design flaws, the attention to detail was unacceptable. For example:

Windows were not centered on walls.
Window heights failed to account for necessary headers.
Critical components, like the water heater, were completely omitted.
When I brought these issues up to Gary, he dismissed them as things we could “handle later”—after the plans were submitted. But by consuming so much of my time and budget, I couldn’t afford (in either dollars or schedule) to pay him to fix them. I was left with no choice but to address these problems myself.

Lastly, I hired an architect expecting creative expertise and thoughtful design. Instead, I got basic drafting with little added value. Despite my insistence that my sketches were just starting points, the design never moved beyond them.

In the end, Gary’s work added unnecessary cost, stress, and delays to what should have been an exciting process. What should have been a dream turned into an enormous disappointment, falling far short of what I expected from a professional architect.

If you need an architect, I would advise you to keep looking past Gary.

Branch Ellison

I have been working with Gary for more than a couple years now and can't imagine going with anyone else. He has diligently been there when I needed him and his kindness and professionalism had made the entire experience beyond rewarding. Highly recommend!!!

Patrick Harding

We have worked with Gary on many projects and he is always a pleasure to work with.

Dave Ganster

Gary has always done a great job for me.
A true professional in every way.
Thanks for all your help Gary.

Stephen Carlston

A pleasure to work with on multiple projects. I plan to continue using his architect services in the future.