The strikingly memorable, socially shareable, musically themed reception area at Central Texas Periodontics isn’t the only high note in this award-winning practice’s aesthetic.

DR. JONATHAN CALLIA is feeling uneasy. Like most successful doctors who have grown their practices across several locations, he built all five of his Austin, Texas–area offices around his patients. But while his newest Central Texas Periodontics outpost is the most attractive and functional yet, he hasn’t fully made peace with one thing. “I still have mixed feelings about the guitars,” he says.

Composing a New Opus
You’ve probably guessed from these photographs that Dr. Callia is more than a casual music fan. The hardworking periodontist is also a guitarist who plays in a band called Guns & Oil. So while planning to open in Georgetown—one of America’s ten fastest-growing cities—it occurred to him that the new office could also function as practice headquarters. “This is a new and original office that’s very different from our others,” he says. “I consider it my ‘home’ office, and I wanted it to reflect me.”

Exactly how much it should reflect him has been a playful bone of contention between Dr. Callia and his interior designer ever since. While working on his project, Benco Dental designer Angèle Hashoul quickly learned that Dr. Callia is modest, no-nonsense and sometimes of few words: enviable character traits, to be sure, but decidedly unhelpful for an interior designer who thrives on gobs of input. “Design is about personality, about connection between the client and their designer,” she says. “And I did say to him, ‘If this is going to be your home office, you might as well have something to connect with.’ ”

Imperfect 10: The reception room wall gives a noble second life to castoffs from Dr. Callia’s extensive guitar collection. “I chose guitars that look cool but I’m not crazy about their playability.”

Not knowing what that something might be, Hashoul planned a dinner with Dr. Callia and his wife, Neda, Central Texas Perio’s VP of operations, who orchestrated the practice’s expansion and moonlights as a dental team trainer and business consultant. Little did Hashoul know the couple fundamentally disagreed on overall aesthetics. Dr. Callia favors darker colors and industrial-looking elements, while Neda prefers natural light and open spaces. How did they reconcile such seemingly conflicting urges? “We went through a lot of counseling to figure that out,” Dr. Callia quips. Hashoul says that the reality was relatively painless. “I eventually ended up splitting the difference with, for example, white walls that featured charcoal color accents.”

Hitting the Right Note
Later during dinner, Hashoul pressed Dr. Callia for clues about his personal life. “He talked about how he does gigs and he’s a guitarist. It turns out he owns, like, 50 guitars. He showed me pictures, and they’re all beautiful. He also told me that when he sees someone who’s talented but short on money, he’ll give them one as a gift.” That was the eureka moment for Hashoul, who shot back, “Will you donate five or six to me so I can put them in your reception area?”

Coming and going: Designer Angèle Hashoul says the glass door between check-in and checkout was chosen to let “an immense amount of light through.”

Dr. Callia was unpersuaded. “I am very private with strangers,” he admits. On the other hand, “With good patients I know, I love it as a talking point.” While Hashoul did several designs with and without the guitars, but still incorporating musical elements like sheet-music staffs, Dr. Callia eventually came around thanks in part to Neda’s support for the idea. Now that some time has passed, Dr. Callia concedes, “The good outweighs the bad.”

“This is a new and original office that’s very different from our others. I consider it my ‘home’ office, and I wanted it to reflect me.”

Flowing Like Music
Neda was integral to honing the practical, functional elements of the office, such as ergonomics and patient flow, even down to the smallest details. Chalk it up to having four previous executions under her belt. “She did not miss any of our meetings,” Hashoul says. Dr. Callia, on the other hand, “was able to skip many of them because he trusted her judgment and she knew what she was doing.” Comfort and organization, Hashoul adds, were overriding priorities. About the only significant compromise was abandoning plans for two separate entrances in each operatory due to construction issues.

Check-in and checkout were given an especially large amount of attention, both in terms of appearance and function. “Practicing in our new office is a huge difference in improvements with patient flow,” Dr. Callia says, while improvements in ergonomics tend to be “less dramatic and more incremental.” He’s reluctant to dole out advice for others since every practice is unique, but he has learned that “the well-being of doctors and team members [relies on] a balance between the front and back getting along.”

Booking the Right Venue
Settling on a business location in any town can be a nailbiter, but in a frenetically sprawling city like Austin, it can be hard to see into the future. Luckily, as longtime residents, Dr. Callia and Neda have a good sense of what to look for. It further helps that Dr. Callia is circumspect and notably coolheaded about decision making. “We opened [our Austin location] in an area with too much perio competition, so that office is struggling. But all our other locations were chosen based on demand,” he says.

Home office: Dr. Callia envisioned this as his unofficial headquarters, so naturally his practice is comfortingly decorated with some of his favorite memorabilia.

He pinpointed the Georgetown location, for example, not only because of its lack of providers, but also its proximity to the massive, age-restricted Sun City housing development, which has 4,750 acres of older adults. As for the seemingly endless price rise for Austin-area real estate, Dr. Callia is characteristically unfazed. “It had no impact on the decision to buy real estate. It’s a good investment regardless versus renting.”

Crafting a Coda
Dr. Callia says he has no plans for additional locations. That could certainly change, but considering his five spaces already cover a broad swath of the Austin area, where else would they go? Besides, it’s always satisfying to end on a high note, and the Georgetown office certainly does that. It’s beautiful, functional, comfortable and welcoming. Plus, it reflects a distinctive, perfectly tuned hint of Dr. Callia’s individuality without going overboard, which has the added benefit of setting it apart from cookie-cutter corporate dentistry offices. If you’re going to make music part of your practice’s visual identity, there’s no better place than Austin.

Making it a reality was an unfor­gettable gig for all involved, especially considering that Central Texas Periodontics won Best New Build in the 2023 ADA Design Innovation Awards competition. Not a Grammy, but it’ll do. “It was great to work with Angèle,” Dr. Callia says. “She’s the best. It doesn’t feel like your typical dental office—in a good way.”

The Design Team
Photography: SW Visual Media
Interior Design: Angèle Hashoul, Benco Dental
Equipment Specialist: Paul Thompson, BENCO DENTAL
SALES REPRESENTATIVE: Jake Sutton, BENCO DENTAL
Online: centraltexasperio.com