Costello Construction & Remodeling Inc.

Eighteen permits, and typical jobs running $150,000 to $3 million — Costello Construction & Remodeling builds at the upper end of the North Shore market, not the odd-job end of it. Sean Costello has run the Essex company since 2005 by its own account, and the BBB file puts it at 21 years, one employee, with Costello as president. The permitted work is the most concrete part of the story: a $200,000 second-storey addition in Rowley in 2021, a new single-family house in West Newbury in 2023, a second-floor bathroom addition in Manchester in 2022. The Houzz galleries follow the same shape — Wenham, Rockport new construction and interior renovations, Ipswich, South Hamilton — fifteen projects in all. The customer writing is thinner, and mostly old. Three Angi reviews from November 2009, January 2013 and November 2015 are uniformly positive; HomeAdvisor mirrors the same three word for word, so that is three accounts, not six. The 2009 homeowner described the job as positive from the first phone call to the last touch-up, with respectful workers and materials they noticed; the 2015 one recommended the company without question. The only recent word is a May 2025 Google review from someone who has worked with Sean and Roxanne on several projects and called the quality top notch — a collaborator's view rather than a client's. The licensing checks out. The Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration, 145642, is active in the state registry, and the company also publishes construction supervisor number CS-086882. Its BBB grade is A+ with no complaints on file, though the business is not BBB-accredited and that grade is BBB's own assessment rather than a customer score. One wrinkle worth raising on the call: Angi's page claims eleven years of experience while the BBB says twenty-one and the company says it has specialized in general contracting since 2005. Ask which is right. This is the outfit for a large addition, a custom build or a historic restoration on the North Shore, where the permit trail does the talking. Since so little of the customer writing is recent, ask for two or three homeowners from jobs finished in the last two years, and call them.