Tim Bryan Class of 79!



How time flies when you’re having fun I guess… anyway, those days back in the 70’s were some of the best. Back when we had little more to think about than keeping up with our friends at school, getting our homework done, waiting for the next Friday night football game, washing our cars, and staring at the calendar and wishing that Summer would come soon. I guess that most of you experienced the fact that life got a little more complicated after we all graduated from high school. Hopefully many of you have been able to enjoy the time since the 70’s and make the most out of each day and passing year. As for me, after I graduated in 1979, I went on to the University of Tennessee and spent the next several years in Knoxville and graduated from the School of Architecture in 1985. What a great time that was too, but I won’t go into that here. Immediately after graduation from college, I landed a job in Atlanta working with a firm that specialized in apartment design. My real love was always for designing homes, so within a few months I spotted another job offering in an Atlanta newspaper that was exactly the type of firm that I wanted to work for. Speeding things up a bit here, I got the job and spent the next 8 years there. I learned so much about home design from my mentors where I worked that that knowledge follows me in my work each and every day. After 8 years at that residential architectural firm, I nervously left my comfortable job, to start out on my own. I spent a few years designing homes for a builder for his spec and custom homes. Later, in 1996, I decided to officially start my own company designing houses. I brought together some of my architect friends and we organized into Bryan, Larson, Grace & Contreras, LLC. Since the firm opened its doors, we have had a few changes. Two of my business partners left to go down another path. Now we are renamed Bryan & Contreras, LLC. We are located in Alpharetta, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. I am doing what I really love and that is designing custom homes for individual clients. I estimate that I have designed at least 500 homes for people since I started down this path after high school and college. A lot of my work has appeared in “Southern Living” magazine, along with quite a few other publications and newspapers. One home that I designed is built close to Chattanooga and is a showhouse that is open to the public every day. It is built inside the Carpets of Dalton showroom in Dalton, Georgia. I have sold stock plans that we have to clients in and around Chattanooga so I know that some of my homes are built there too. Every day is a new challenge at the office and the home design business never gets boring. I get to design the dream homes of my clients. I really love my work. It’s what I wanted to do since I was at Central High School in the 70’s…as some of you may remember that knew me and saw me drawing houses even back then! On my personal side, I have never married. I am incredibly happy with the life that I have and with the friends that I have around me. I live in a home that I designed for myself on 2 acres in Alpharetta, Georgia. I completed my home a couple of years ago and am still getting settled into my own dream home. I have 2 dogs that I rescued from an animal shelter. The dogs have a custom-designed room just for them, with murals that I painted on the walls and their own custom indoor dog hotel. The dogs go with me to work every day. I designed my home around entertaining and that’s exactly what I like to do. I have a boat on Lake Lanier where I spend weekends out on the lake throughout the year. Some of my favorite places that I have traveled outside the USA are the Canadian Rockies, the Caribbean, and Mexico. I have dog-sledded in minus-zero temperatures in Canada and walked along the southern-most tip of the Baja peninsula in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It has been a fantastic journey through life so far. There have been ups and downs, but that’s normal. Life is what you make of it and sometimes you only get that chance to do things once, so I enjoy each and every day! What a terrific thing the internet is and it’s something that we could not even have dreamed about back in the 70’s. Thanks for letting me share a part of my life and thanks for sharing all your other stories here. I can’t wait for more from our 70’s connection of classmates from Central High School…what a time it was!

To contact Tim you can e-mail him at TimLBryan@msn.com