Hawaii firm has Cleve & Levin, the Honolulu-based architectural and interior design company, has expanded to Texas, opening an Austin office, Cleve & Levin/Austin Inc.
designs on Texas
Cleve & Levin hopes to transfer
the elements that made it successful
in Hawaii to its Austin officeBy Erika Engle
eengle@starbulletin.comTexans are known to boast mightily of Texas' size and other attributes, and that translates into interior design elements, said Dian Cleve, Texas-born, kamaaina company president.
"Texas has a very strong sense of identity," Cleve said. "There are wonderful craftspeople there."
In both Hawaii and Texas, the importance of the general culture, food culture, craftspeople and other aspects are key ingredients Cleve & Levin will use for the company's commercial and private clients.
"Our commitment to bringing regional, cultural and social context to our designs has made us a leader in Hawaii and will help us in the Texas market," said Vice President Jack Levin. The company lists 20 projects in Texas in various categories such as residential, office, retail store, restaurant or hospitality and historic restoration.
Levin has been traveling between Texas and Hawaii for about the past year, Cleve said, working out of a "cooperative" type office. She said he wanted to be closer to his aging parents, and when the number of opportunities for the company also became a draw, the decision was made to set up their own shop in Austin.
Both Cleve and Levin have family in the area, though they did not meet until Levin moved to Hawaii in 1987. He went to work for Cleve's company as an architect the following year, and they reorganized the business to more effectively join forces in 1990.
Cleve came to Hawaii some 30 years ago to attend the University of Hawaii, where she earned a bachelor's in environmental design, a B.F.A. in western art history and a bachelor of architecture degree. She stayed and raised a business and a family, including two sons -- one a teacher in Osaka, Japan, the other a teacher in New Jersey -- and a daughter, local actress Jennifer Cleve. Dian Cleve has no plans to buy a home in Texas, but will make "quick trips," she said.
Earlier this year Cleve traveled to Las Vegas to pitch her company's proprietary hotel renovation software to Purchase Pro, a business-to-business software company. She said the pitch went well but that the company is undergoing management changes so the deal with them is on hold.
Cleve said before her company commissioned the software, inventory of each hotel room destined for renovation could take 12 minutes, which would be followed by hours and hours of data entry. The software helps cut the inventory time to three minutes, a tremendous consideration when the company handles renovation of such venues as the 450-room S.S. Independence.
The software also helps in that the uniform data entered for each piece of furniture, bedspread or lampshade can be used across the board for the entire project, eliminating man-hours previously devoted to repeated data entry. She may have the software upgraded for use on hand-held as well as laptop and desktop computers.
The company's most recent Hawaii project involves interior design for the new parish hall and family life center at Central Union Church. Renovation of the Airport Holiday Inn, the Kaanapali Beach Hotel and the creation of prototype designs for primary schools under construction in Thailand and Myanmar are other recent projects.
In its design for the interior of the former Haleiwa Beach Grill next to Matsumoto's Shave Ice, key elements included water, sand and a custom-made surfboard which served as the eatery's menu board. That project was undertaken for Robert T. Lee, who was among Cleve's first commercial clients, and among her first commercial clients to retain her for a private residence. There have since been many of those.
Lee is best known as the proprietor of Pizza Bob's and Rosie's Cantina, both in Haleiwa. He was also the owner of longtime Haleiwa restaurant and nightspot Steamer's, which Cleve & Levin "reinvented" more than once. The booklet outlining the processes the architecture and design teams went through on the Haleiwa Beach Grill project got the company hired for another job.
Among Cleve & Levin's commercial clients in the hospitality field is the Waikiki Sand Villa Hotel.
President Hiroki Shuto said the company was brought in at the recommendation of its architect, Fritz Johnson, when it purchased and overhauled its annex building. The building was gutted, Shuto said, to make 10 studio units, and the interior design work still stands after 10 years.
Cleve & Levin was hired in the early 1990s for an interior renovation project at the apartment home of shopping center consultant and developer Alan Beall. "It was a two-bedroom two-bath apartment," Beall said, which he wanted remade into a one-bedroom, two bath apartment "with a nice big Jacuzzi."
Working with architect Charles Sutton, Cleve & Levin renovated the home, adding koa flooring, koa-framed mirrors and other Hawaiian-thematics.
"It won all kinds of architectural awards that year," Beall said, including the American Institute of Architects Hawaii Chapter "overall" and "grand award," in Hawaii Renaissance in 1992. Beall later sold the home, which he purchased 20 years earlier for about $275,000, to relocate to the Big Island. After spending "about half a million dollars," on the renovation, it was appraised at $1.85 million after the work was done.