FBN Construction

FBN Construction is a high-end residential builder and renovator working across Boston and the near suburbs, with an office at 780 Dedham St in Canton. Its About page says it has been building since 1978, and it lists a salaried staff of around 38 — project managers, site superintendents, estimators and carpenters — headed by president Larissa Cook with Bob Ernst as managing partner. The work is at the top of the market. Permit records show 55 projects, including a $643,205 kitchen, mudroom and master bathroom remodel in Milton in 2020 and a $575,167 basement remodel with a full HVAC upgrade in Brookline in 2023. Its own project list runs to a two-storey loft in a converted 1840s mercantile wharf building, a 5,000 square foot penthouse on the 59th floor of a Boston high rise, and a carriage house with a gym and batting cages. It claims Boston Magazine's Best Custom Home Builder for 2024 and Modern Luxury Interiors' Custom Builder of the Year for 2026. Here is the thing a homeowner most needs to know: almost nobody who has actually hired this company has written about it publicly. Eleven reviews are on file and all eleven are five stars, but they are written by architects, interior designers, an audio-visual firm, a cabinet supplier and an installer describing what it is like to collaborate with FBN — not by clients describing what it was like to have FBN work on their house. Foley Fiore Architecture wrote in February 2013 about ten years of collaboration; Poggenpohl Boston wrote in February 2013 about five years of shared jobs; Vani Sayeed Studios wrote in February 2016 as an interior designer who had worked with them on several projects. The single closest thing to a customer voice is second-hand. In a January 2019 review, Favreau Design quoted a client saying "FBN is not the most affordable in town, but the quality, service and dedication I received was worth every penny and more." That is the clearest available signal on price: this is a premium builder and reviewers say so. The company's own tenure claims do not line up. The About page says 1978, which is 48 years; the homepage says "over five decades"; its Houzz profile says "over the past four decades." Take 1978 as the sourced figure. The licence position also needs checking directly. The company publishes Massachusetts Home Improvement Contractor registration 173002 for itself, and that number matches what the permit directory lists as active — a real corroboration. But the same directory prints that record with an issue date of 27 August 2026 while claiming to have verified it active in July 2026, lists a second cancelled HIC number, and asserts the company holds fourteen further licences without naming a holder on any of them. FBN is a plausible choice for a large, design-led renovation or custom build in Boston or the western and southern suburbs, where design professionals clearly rate them. Ask for three references from homeowners whose projects finished in the last two years, not from designers, and confirm registration 173002 directly with the Commonwealth's Office of Consumer Affairs before signing.