Ben the Mason

Ben the Mason is a Beverly family masonry business — Ben, working alongside his sons (reviewers name Lawrence, Leo, and Misail at different points) — with a Massachusetts home improvement contractor license registered to Ben The Mason Inc that's verified active with the state. Google shows a 4.9-star average from 165 ratings, and the written record backs that up: 139 reviews stretching back to 2021, most of them detailed, specific accounts of real jobs. The range of work covers most of what a fieldstone-heavy New England house needs: foundation repointing and crack repair, chimney repair and capping, front-step and walkway rebuilds in brick, granite, and bluestone, basement waterproofing and leak diagnosis, and stone-wall restoration. What comes up again and again is diagnostic care rather than just labor — Ben rebuilt a fallen-in, 100-year-old catch basin under a brick driveway, explaining the improved drainage design as he went. In an August 2025 review, a customer described Ben identifying that wrought-iron railings had caused real structural damage to a 50-foot brick wall and pathway, and — unlike prior contractors who'd simply repoint — designing a custom granite-and-rebar fix instead. In an April 2025 review, another described him restoring a loosened dry-set fieldstone wall, removing built-up lichen and moss, then acid-washing the new mortar to match the original weathered stone. Responsiveness shows up in nearly every account: same-day estimates, next-day starts, and jobs finished in a single visit are the norm rather than the exception, and several reviewers describe Ben proactively fixing small unrelated problems — a broken sump pump, a tripping hazard on a neighboring step — without charging extra. Multiple customers describe using him more than once over several years. Not everyone had that experience: in a 2021 review, one caller described being cursed at over the phone when asking for a quote — a stark outlier against the rest of the record, but a real one worth knowing about. For fieldstone foundations, chimneys, and stonework on an older New England home, this is a business with an unusually deep and consistent track record to back up the reputation.