Heidi Walton’s life has been a full immersion in craftsmanship and architecture, first growing up in an 1800s restored farmhouse, then studying environmental design and architecture at Texas A&M and then the University of Houston.
It was at A&M that she met Kevin Walton, who then was simply a friend but now is her husband of 13 years. After a short stint in Boston, Kevin returned to Houston to work for Glassman Shoemake Maldonado Architects. Now they both work at Robert Sanders Homes, a design-build firm founded by Heidi’s brother.
Both Heidi and Kevin will be honored in June as Leaders In Design by the Houston Design District.
Every day is different, but they’re filled with the task of working with clients to design the exteriors and interiors of their homes while managing the firm’s construction projects.
“Sometimes in our roles as architects, we are designing homes. Sometimes it’s interior design and helping with interior solutions, and sometimes it’s project management,” said Heidi, 41 and a native of Spring. “There can be so much separation between architecture and construction, but we think getting to the end result is more efficient this way.”
They also work with other architects whose projects are being built by Robert Sanders Homes, including Dillon Kyle Architects, Nadia Palacios Residential Design and McIntyre + Robinowitz Architects.
Heidi and Kevin, also 41 and a native of Waller, have taken their two sons – 11 and 7 years old – to Disney World just once. Instead, vacations take them to places where they can admire historical homes and structures, stopping to take pictures of craftsmanship or details they admire.
During the pandemic they often took their sons to construction sites and their oldest would collect construction remnants and then built a fort out of it. A year later, he deconstructed it and built a new one that was even better.
While the couple often works on six-figure projects and homes as large as 6,000 to 7,000 square feet, they think about their work as something that should be accessible to everyone.
“We try to be really inclusive because, at the end of the day, we are doing this because we want to help people. We want to look back in 50 years and say ‘we built this house and think of all of the memories that people made there’,” Heidi said.
“We try to be really inclusive because, at the end of the day, we are doing this because we want to help people. We want to look back in 50 years and say ‘we built this house and think of all of the memories that people made there’.” – Heidi Walton