Homeowner Profile: Meet Lynn and Marc Appelbaum

At Woods Design Builders, our clients quickly become our friends. Every home is as unique as the families we build them for, and we love chronicling the journey of each project. Most recently, we completed a classic Santa Fe home with features such as moss rock stone walls, reclaimed chestnut wood flooring and custom designed and built cabinetry. Perched atop a mountain, this home has one of the best views Santa Fe has to offer.

We sat down with the Appelbaums to discuss their experience with Woods Design Builders:

How were you introduced to Woods Design Builders?

Natives of New Jersey, we have been coming out to Santa Fe since 1991 with our family, and we fell in love with the area. It has always been our dream to have a home in Santa Fe. On one trip, we came out to a Parade of Homes tour where we met Rob and Shane. After engaging with them, we decided that their style and approach was the best fit for us. 

Tell us about your experience building a Woods Home.

The home building process took fourteen months. During that time, we were still living in New Jersey, so we were building a house halfway across the country. We only came out three or four times during the time it took to build the house. Woods and their team ensured the process was very low-stress. You hear stories and all of the terrible discussions you have with other people who have build homes at a distance, or even in close proximity, but our experience was pleasant and very low-stress. 

The challenge with our home was that it was built eight-thousand feet in elevation with steep slopes in topography on multiple sides of the home. It made construction a bit of a challenge, but Woods made the process easy and helped to calm any nerves we might have had. 

The Woods team is made up of honest, reliable, and overall incredible individuals. The architect, Solomon Velasquez, is fantastic guy. He is creative, articulate and has a great sense of aesthetics. He really helped accomplish everything we wanted in the house despite any challenges in construction that came up. Woods put us in touch with interior designers Paul & Michael, and it made world of difference in making our home complete. Often times when you deal with a designer, they have their own focus, but these guys were very receptive to understanding our needs and guided us through the process to get us to where we wanted to be. 

What are your favorite features of your new home?

The outcome of our home is amazing. It sits on a plateau, and we have amazing views overlooking Mount Baldy and the Santa Fe National Forest. The design of our home has thick, rounded adobe walls, giving the home a nice, smooth, polished finish. Despite a few construction challenges due to the landscape, the Woods team found a way to give us everything we were hoping for in our dream home.

For almost nine years it had been our dream to build a home here, and thankfully, to our friends at Woods, we’ve been able to fulfill it.