MICHAEL J. MEKEEL, Principal

Education

Yale University, Bachelor of Science; University of California at Los Angeles, Master of Architecture.

Registration

Registered architect in California.

Experience

Mr. Mekeel maintains an architectural practice and a real estate development company, specializing in high-quality traditional design and renovation.  With his partner, Mr. Mekeel has successfully directed every aspect of a project, from initial planning and subdividing to development, project management, architectural design, contracting and marketing.

Mr. Mekeel returned to private endeavors after a notable career at Gruen Associates, one of the larger architectural firms in Los Angeles.  At the Gruen firm, Mr. Mekeel was Senior Designer for a number of landmark projects, including the 350 room flagship luxury Marriott Hotel in Century City; the two million sq. ft. Admiralty Place shopping and mixed-use center in Marina del Rey; the Claremont Colleges Campus Forum, a winning competition entry for the Graduate School's social center; the competition- and award-winning designs for the reuse of the historic Pan Pacific Auditorium; and the Bachelor's Enlisted Quarters, housing nearly 300 navy personnel on Naval Base Coronado in San Diego.

He left Gruen Associates to return to his earlier pursuit of quality residential construction, which had included many projects with one of  Los Angeles' premier housing design firms Kamnitzer, Cotton, and Vreeland.  While maintaining an architectural practice designing tracts and individual homes, he has additionally purchased a succession of properties for development and sale.

            Mr. Mekeel has served in Los Angeles as Cultural Affairs Appointee and chairperson of the Whitley Heights Preservation Overlay Zone Association and on the Hollywoodland Specific Plan Design Review Board.

FRANCES OFFENHAUSER, Principal

Education

Bard College, Bachelor of Arts; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Master of Architecture program (1972-76); University of California at Los Angeles School of Architecture and Planning, post-graduate courses in construction administration, development, and financing.

Registration

Registered architect in California

Experience

Fran Offenhauser's architectural practice draws on over 30 years of experience in every aspect of construction - from large-scale master planning and entitlements, to real estate development, to building design, to construction contracting.  Her work combines strong aesthetics with a practicality won from having worked in every role on the building team.

Ms. Offenhauser has built a significant practice in historic preservation in California, restoring landmarks from major public buildings to private estates.  This starts from a love for and knowledge of the region’s architectural styles.  Her firm has extensive experience with the specific stylistics, ornament, massing, structural design, landscape design, interiors, fancies, and flaws of these historic buildings, and this knowledge carries over into both restoration and new construction. 

For the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Ms. Offenhauser transformed the Spanish Revival "Beverly Hills Waterworks" into the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study -- the world's premier library of print materials about film.  She brought a unique background of hands-on construction experience combined with large-scale project management experience to this difficult project.  Construction was competitively bid and built with only 1% change orders.  She adapted the derelict water treatment plant’s aerators, clarifiers, and filtration pits to the Academy’s need for heavy library loads, and the result won numerous local, state, and national design awards

Once again, she is transforming an historic building for the Academy’s archival uses – this time a post-war concrete landmark whose television studios were curiously suited for film vault use.  Currently Ms. Offenhauser is heading a team of specialists developing state-of-the-art film vaults and the Pickford Screening Room in this 120,000 sq. ft. Hollywood building. 

Residential restoration and historic development projects include her restoration of the derelict Buckland Studios, an enormously picturesque live/work Spanish Revival complex built by Cecil B. DeMille’s art director; restoration of Buckland’s Craftsman hillside home; $1.5 million restoration of a 1905 transitional Arts and Crafts/Georgian Hancock Park home, including construction of a new guest house/garage in compatible style; and fast-tracked $1 million restoration of the UCLA Chancellor’s Residence for the new Chancellor’s sudden arrival.

Other projects include restorations at Los Angeles’ Union Station and the Culver Hotel; two private airport facilities, each with over 100,000 sq. ft. of hangars and terminals; reconstruction of the historic terra cotta entrance porticoes of the California Science Center on Exposition Park’s Rose Garden; Academy representative for its Oscars production as a tenant in the Kodak Theatre; and renovation of the Motion Picture Academy's headquarters office building, accomplished withoutmoving the staff while they were producing the Oscars!

From 1981-1987 Ms. Offenhauser worked at Gruen Associates.  She was Project Architect for the winner of a major competition -- Lakeshore Towers, a $100 million office complex mirrored strikingly in a four-acre lake.  She was also Project Architect for many of the firm’s local commissions - the $15 million reuse of the landmark Pan Pacific Auditorium (also a competition winner), the conversion of the Ohrbach's Department Store into an urban mall/theater complex; and the conversion of the Dart Industries labs into an office project. 

In the fall of 1987, Ms. Offenhauser left Gruen Associates to join Catlett Construction as Vice President for Architecture.  She rehabilitated National Register apartment and hotel properties, responsible for all design and employing a fifty-man construction crew.   While there, she contracted for four design/build renovations and conversions of West Adams area landmark Victorian mansions for USC Real Estate Development.  She concurrently traveled extensively to Puerto Rico, master planning the repositioning of the 500,000 sq. ft. El Conquistador resort, which opened in 1995.

            Ms. Offenhauser has been deeply involved in community activities.  She was a founder and past President of Hollywood Heritage, and is once again serving as President for 2004/2005.  She also served as architect-of-record and project director for the Hollywood Studio Museum, a turn-of-the-(20th)century barn which found fame as Hollywood’s first studio for feature-length motion pictures.