E.M. Jacobson Design

E.M. Jacobson Design is a small design practice based in Swampscott, on Boston's North Shore, run by Eric Jacobson. Houzz lists it among design-build firms, and the work it advertises is drawing and design rather than construction: high-end residential design, renovations and historical restorations, additions, custom kitchen and bath design, deck and patio design, interior finishes and trims, permit planning and CAD documentation, 3-D renderings, and oversight of construction once it is under way. Typical jobs are quoted at $2,000 to $50,000, with an exact proposal offered after an initial consultation. The one customer account on record is a serious one, and it is dated. In a review posted in April 2020, a commercial building owner described hiring Eric Jacobson in 2009 to draw changes connecting a retail space and a utility room in a mixed-use building he owned. He wrote that he asked at their first meeting whether Jacobson was a certified architect who could stamp the blueprint for local inspection services, and that Jacobson said he was not but would obtain the necessary stamp. They agreed on $1,500 and the owner paid half as a deposit. By that account the drawings were rejected by inspection services, which asked for changes. The owner wrote that Jacobson then required the remaining half of the fee before continuing, contrary to what they had agreed, and that after being paid he stopped work altogether, leaving the owner to hire someone else and redo the drawings from scratch while the retail space sat vacant longer than planned. Anyone considering this practice should put that account directly to the firm. Ask who stamps the drawings and under what licence, get the scope, fee schedule and revision policy in writing including what happens if a permit set comes back rejected, and ask for references from projects finished in the last two or three years.