Drawing on extensive and varied experience, Carawan Architecture creates a balanced synthesis of program, budget and sustainable-design strategies for each residential project. Whether it is an estate in Beverly Hills or a cottage nestled in the hills of Ojai or Ventura, style and design are based on the individuality of the client, the unique attributes of the site and historically appropriate detailing.

Dee designs and oversees construction on every project at Carawan Architecture ensuring that the collective vision for the project is fully realized. Dee is experienced in designing for stringent building codes on challenging lots and in districts with design reviews. Her plans are exacting in their detail and thorough in their specifications making the architect-contractor relationship an effortless one.

Dee Carawan Architect

A native of Los Angeles, Dee has been practicing architecture for 28 years, specializing in residential work for over 20 years. She attended California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo and spent a year at the Royal Academy of Architecture in Copenhagen, Denmark. She graduated Cal Poly with a Bachelor of Architecture with Honors. In her early career, she specialized in high end residential estate design as an architect for such prestigious firms as Landry Design Group and Hablinski Architecture where she renovated stately older homes and designed custom commissioned homes in a variety of styles, from Palm Beach Mediterranean estates to Tuscan Villas.

Dee has led her own architectural practice since 2000, based in Ventura, CA, with projects from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and beyond. In her practice, Dee enjoys both large and small projects as each present their own interesting challenges. At any given time she might be drawing a rambling French view home while conceiving of a smart addition to a Craftsman bungalow. A good project is one that allows Dee to solve tricky design problems, improve the architectural landscape of a neighborhood and significantly enhance her clients’ quality of life.

Inspiration 

Dee has been pursuing architectural interests since early childhood when she was inspired by the work of her grandfather Maynard Parker, an LA architectural photographer who covered residential architecture across the US for major architectural and design magazines from the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

In 1996, Dee’s family donated her grandfather’s archives to the Huntington Library in Pasadena. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has made the archive accessible to scholars and the public.

A book on his life and work was published in 2012 by Yale University Press titled Maynard Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream.

Dee has written a personal article on her wonderful Grandfather titled Small House(s) Big Life By Dee Carawan that chronicles his love affair with quirky small houses. “I like to think I’ve carried on this tradition!”