Abeer Sweis has come a long way in the 20 years since she started her own boutique design firm. She remembers being in business for just three months when she hired one of her Architecture students as her first employee. “I really missed working with a team and quickly realized that the most fruitful results come from collaboration. So, when I met the incredibly talented Olivia, I immediately offered her a part-time job,” she said. Soon Abeer had five employees working out of her rented house before moving to an office in Santa Monica two years later and establishing her company as a successful boutique design firm.
Although designing satisfied Abeer’s need to create, the end result was still not enough.
Architects typically design the shell of the building, but this leaves a lot of decisions to be made by the homeowner, contractor and interior designers, which can compromise the design vision. Abeer knew that to get the best results for both her clients and her firm was to fully control the project from concept to completion. So, in 2006, her husband Jeff Kloss joined the firm to launch the construction side of the business. They had met as Architecture students at Woodbury University, but in contrast with Abeer’s passion for design, Jeff has a penchant for building. He started working for a construction company while still in school and really enjoyed it. “I always liked building things, working with my hands, and figuring out how things go together.”
After graduating, Jeff spent the next six years learning all aspects of construction with the Marshall Group, before working at CW Driver in a project management role. While he enjoyed building large-scale projects, from housing to libraries and school renovations, he missed working on projects that were more personal for the end user. Thus, the perfect opportunity presented itself, and the husband and wife joined forces to create a full-service design + construct firm.
As Synthesis grew in Santa Monica and the Westside, word of mouth began to spread, and Synthesis came to be regarded as one of Santa Monica’s preeminent boutique design and construction firms. People love working with them not only for their obvious joy of the art form, but for the advantages that the design-construct process offers their clients.
With one firm overseeing everything, it enables a more fluid and transparent experience for everyone involved.
Abeer and Jeff take great pride in the work and relationships they’ve built over the past 20 years. As the newly named SweisKloss suggests, it is a partnership that brings together the best of design + construct.
