"My name is Bob Blank. My wife, Marcia, and I bought a vacant lot in east Lake Forest in 2010 and sought out an architect to design a home for the property. We interviewed several architects, including Neal Gerdes. We chose Neal because we liked his design ideas for our home, and because Marcia and I found Neal to be personable and easy to talk with.

After we selected Neal, he promptly and professionally met all the design milestones. We had built other custom homes before, and used other architects in those projects. We found Neal to be much more creative and competent than those others, and very importantly much easier and enjoyable to work with. Neal expertly managed us through a challenging local architectural review process, and he closely monitored the construction progress to ensure compliance to the plans. All in all, our project was a success, and we credit Neal for being a highly significant contributor to that outcome. I would highly recommend Neal to anyone looking for an expert architect to design their custom home."

"Throughout the design process of my home renovation as well as my new wine store, AKL and specifically Neal, made it very easy. Working closely with my designer, contractor and myself, Neal guided the project from concept to reality. I was impressed by Neal's commitment during the permitting and construction phases as minor changes were done efficiently allowing the project timing to stay on track."—Joe Dalton, President, Joe's Wine Cellar, Inc.

"If you are looking for a dependable, trustworthy architect, we would highly recommend Neal Gerdes and AKL Architectural Services. We owe him considerable gratitude for all that he has done for us over the past few years. He saved the day by helping us recuperate from a renovation project gone wrong and served as our most trusted advisor. When we found ourselves in a situation where we needed to make some structural repairs, we were comforted to know that Neal was in charge of the drawings. Our Village required that we also hire a structural engineer and Neal had some good suggestions for that task as well. Neal is very professional and takes each project seriously. He was truly our go-to-guy throughout our building endeavors. From organizing and presenting our case to the Village Board when we needed to apply for a building variance to recommending reliable contractors who could make the repairs to answering every last question of ours, we could always count on Neal for his expertise and honest opinions.

In addition, we learned that construction projects tend to take longer than expected. That was in no way exacerbated by Neal; he always worked quickly and efficiently, but never in a manner than compromised his quality. If you are considering hiring Neal and AKL Architectural Services to help design your building project, we would wholeheartedly support that instinct. The only regret we have is that we didn’t start our renovation with him; it would have saved us tremendous heartache and frustration."—Gorley

"We are 100% satisfied with the work Neal did for us. Also, we have friends who live in houses that Neal designed and they are all beautiful."—Kevin