About Water & Steel

Danielle Brestel, PE founded Water & Steel to offer structural engineering services to architects, builders, and homeowners.  Currently, we are offering design services for projects in North Carolina.  Share your creative ideas with us.  Together, we can guide them to reality.

About Danielle Brestel

I grew up holding the other end of the tape measure for my dad on many home construction projects.  My grandfather and great-grandfather were both carpenters, and my dad worked his way through college on construction sites.  If it’s possible, I have building in my blood.

There was the butcher block at age two; the gazebo at age four; the living room load-bearing wall removal and garage to playroom conversion at age seven; in a different house, an attic to playroom conversion at age eleven.  Shortly afterward, my parents hired architects to design their dream house.

When I was sixteen, we moved into their dream house – minus the master suite.  And the summer after my freshman year in college, my dad and I framed the master suite addition just the two of us.  I’ve been constructing my own projects ever since.

So how did all that practical experience result in doing design work behind a computer most of the day?  I’ve been asking myself the same question!

During the age-seven remodel, my dad also added an expanse of windows across the back of our house.  Our home sat atop an Appalachian ridge and the new west-facing windows afforded the most stunning sunset views.  A seed was planted.  A house was capable of being more than a shelter.  It could connect its inhabitants to something more than the humdrum of daily life. It could inspire us to dream.

Then when I was twelve, my parents took me to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.  As I rounded the path and Fallingwater came into view, the world seemed to come to a standstill.  I was mesmerized that this structure over that stream existed.  Fallingwater was unlike any house I’d ever seen.  That day, I decided I was going to design buildings that inspire us to dream.

That desire drove me to study both architecture and engineering in college.  I love architecture and working with architects.  I love to see creative ideas become reality.

Visit LinkedIn for the nuts and bolts.