Craftsman says passion drives his mountain designs

When Garry Tomashowski, owner of Mount Charleston Realty Inc., isn’t selling homes on the mountain, he is engaging in his passion. He guts existing homes and starts from scratch. Tomashowski says he has refurbished about a dozen homes. His company purchases the homes based on their location.

“Passion of mountain design and how a home interfaces with the mountain environment play a large part in the projects I choose,” he said.

Tomashowski has experience in design, contracting, building and woodworking, and he has found that his customers enjoy collaborating with him.

“Buyers appreciate being offered design and development possibilities. … They allow a client to feel the passion and excitement a property may offer.”

“I consider Garry a formidable builder and craftsman, with exceptional ability to visualize and express ideas that are in concert with the dreams of potential homebuyers, or ones who may want to build,” former client Paul Bodor says. “This is an invaluable trait, and often not well understood, even when it is the emotional component that is the key factor in the buy/build/sell decision.”

Two of Tomashowski’s refurbished homes were featured in Cabin Life magazine last year.

One 800-square-foot home, which sold last year for $300,000, featured a unique 1,500-square-foot rooftop. It’s designed like a park and has a slate waterfall that flows into a river spanning the entire deck. It also has Austrian pine trees and artificial grass, private patio, dining area, seating area, smokehouse and barbecue area. It is accessed by an outside staircase. A cedar fence provides privacy but allows for views of the mountain.

Tomashowski says the A-frame cabin he and his wife, Angie, purchased in 2001 was heavily damaged by an electrical fire in 2009 while the couple were in the middle of a renovation project to turn it into a weekend rental.

Garry Tomashowski said he wanted something different for the home. Something that just wasn’t another A-frame house on the mountain.

“I wanted an interesting approach,” he said.

He said many of the Mount Charleston cabins are small or medium-sized. When he refurbishes them, he uses quality material and high-end designs.

“People are looking for quality regardless of size,” he said.

Some of the custom touches he adds include hardwood flooring, knotty pine woodwork, exterior decks, custom tile and wall-to-wall, river rock-covered fireplaces.

“I perform almost all of the construction tasks required by each trade. … It’s challenging, reflective and humbling work.”

His latest project is a home he designed 22 years ago, so he is, in effect, tearing up his own work. The 3,400-square-foot home, on the market for $939,000, has a 35-foot-high pine ceiling and wide-span beamwork.

It boasts the most glasswork of any home on the mountain, with an atrium surrounded 180 degrees by windows. Tomashowski added exterior seating locations and water features and refinished the custom redwood exterior.