About Us

Hello! Thanks for your interesting in working with us.

Compass Design Build is truly a family business, owned and operated by Gabe and Courtney Cross. Our professional experience in the building industry started back in 2008, when Courtney started her Master of Architecture at University of Oregon and Gabe began working in green building. Long before that, Gabe began learning about construction as a teenager working on his parent's house, which was the quirky kind of home unique to artists, with custom built sleeping lofts and hand-made tile. His first big solo project was a stone staircase that led up a steep canyon to a view out over rolling desert hills. Courtney's mother did interior decorating, so she spent her childhood following mom around to pick flooring and finishes. The family had a sailboat and Courtney fell in love with the creative solutions that you find in well designed multi-functional small spaces. Her father, an engineer, took young Courtney to see many great works of architecture throughout her childhood, including Falling Water and Notre Dame. 

We met in theater school in undergrad and worked together professionally for many years in technical theater, building sets and running electrical for big stage productions.  After we got married, we purchased our first house, a 1908 farmhouse that was in need of heavy fixing. We thought it was a great bargain, and spent the next few years remodeling the house with lots of sweat and a super limited budget. It turns out, we were pretty good at this, and between the two of us we had a lot of the skills we needed to do many different parts of the remodeling process. This experience laid the groundwork for Gabe and I eventually deciding to start our own design build business. Since then, we've done everything from replacing doors and repairing siding to building treehouses and accessory dwellings.