By creating a sparkling new practice, for one.

Let your mind wander at Alamo Heights Dental’s spacious environs, and you’ll think you’re about to check in at the Four Seasons.  (Photos courtesy Fazio Architects)

In a recent Incisal Edge interview with Mellanie Perez, she discusses that new construction completed by two generations of dentists in the DeKoch family after 37 years in their former location.

“In 1980, when Dr. Dirk DeKoch opened his San Antonio office, Alamo Heights Dental, he never could have imagined that “A DeKoch Family Practice” would one day be part of its slogan. Nearly four decades on, though, two of his three children—son John and daughter Susie—have chosen to follow their father into the profession.

John, 35, joined the practice in 2009; Susie, 33, hopped aboard in 2016 after a successful stint in orthopedic surgical sales with the medical-equipment firm Smith & Nephew and then dental school.

‘We both had a lot of respect for what our dad does. It just made sense to work together, and we love it,’ says Susie.”

Last September the DeKochs completed a move to a beautiful new practice in Alamo Heights, a large, bustling San Antonio neighborhood. (They share the space with Britton Orthodontics, winner of Best Specialty Practice in the Incisal Edge 2018 Design Competition.)

The spark for the relocation, they said, was Benco Dental’s CenterPoint Experience in Pittston, Pennsylvania, which Drs. John and Dirk visited several years ago.

One piece of advice stuck with Dr. Dirk: “ ‘You cannot control that your facility makes a statement about your practice. What you can control is what that statement is.’ So when we began with this new building,” Dr. Dirk says, “[we wanted to] make the statement that quality matters and patients’ comfort is important.”

Meet and Greet: The high coffered ceiling and clerestory windows of a consult room. Frosted glass boosts privacy.

View more images of Alamo Heights Dental’s 7,000 square foot new home, and find out what they are their patients love most about it: https://secure.viewer.zmags.com/publication/3f23a86d#/3f23a86d/26