“We Use It in Almost Any Weather”: A Montvale Homeowner's Year-Round Answer

Most of what we publish about a Breslow project is the finished result — photos, specs, a walkthrough. This one is different: it's a homeowner in Montvale, NJ, sitting with Dana Shaw in the space itself, describing what changed. We already covered the build details of this Montvale project in an earlier post. This one is the homeowner's own account, largely in their own words.

“It Was Too Hot” — Life Before the Pergola

The homeowner doesn't soften the before-picture. In the video, he describes the rooftop patio space plainly: “This was an unusable space. It was too hot. The sun beats on it all day. And so you'd be cooking up here and you'd have to run downstairs just to cool off.” That's the starting point for a lot of Breslow projects — not a blank lot, but an existing space that was already built, already had a view or a footprint worth using, and simply couldn't be occupied for most of the day because there was nothing to control sun exposure.

With the louvered roof, the fans, and the space engineered around it, that changed. As he puts it now, the family can be “out here at all times and just adjust as needed,” giving them full use of both the upper patio and the pool area below — a space he estimates gets used across three seasons rather than a handful of scorching-hot weeks.

Rain, Wind, and Sitting “Inside the House”

The title of this piece comes directly from how the homeowner describes the weather performance. In his words: “We've been out here in the rain. We've been out here in a little bit of wind with the shade down and it's like you're sitting inside your house.” That's the practical test for a motorized louvered roof — not just shade on a sunny day, but a closed position that genuinely keeps weather out when conditions turn.

Heat was the other piece he called out. With four heaters installed in the space, he notes they “warm it up regardless of whether the shade is up or down” — meaning the space isn't dependent on the louvers being closed to stay comfortable once the temperature drops. Breslow installs heating options including Bromic and Infratech, sized and positioned to the specific footprint during design.

Columns Matched to the House

One detail the homeowner returned to more than once was the columns. He wanted the new structure's columns to match the columns already on the front of his house — not a generic column style, but the specific one his home already had. As he describes it: “The other thing that you guys did for us, which is great, is if you look at these columns, they match the columns I have in the front of the house.” The design team confirmed the approach was to photograph the existing columns and match them directly, rather than working from a catalog of standard options.

This is the kind of detail that separates a stock structure from one designed around a specific home. As Dana puts it in the conversation: “I think that's what separates us from everyone else is that we're really truly building a design that fits your house.”

Engineered Around the Pool Gate

A smaller but telling detail: the homeowner has a pool gate and fence line he couldn't remove for safety reasons, but he still wanted the motorized shade to close as close to fully as possible. The measurement was taken specifically so the shade comes down nearly flush against the gate and fence without the gate needing to move — solving a site-specific constraint rather than a generic shade footprint. It's a reminder that a custom install starts with the exact conditions of a specific yard, not a standard template.

“This Is What We Wanted”

Asked directly how he feels about the finished space, the homeowner doesn't hedge: “I'm ecstatic. This is what we wanted. I didn't want to enclose it… I didn't want to lose the light. We wanted something we could open and close.” That's the core case for a motorized louvered roof over a fixed or solid structure — control, rather than a single, permanent condition.

You can hear more accounts like this one in our client testimonials, or read the build specifics of this project in our original Montvale, NJ louvered roof post. If your own patio or rooftop space gets written off for most of the year because of sun, rain, or wind, a design consultation is where that conversation starts.