Eight weeks, one neglected 1860s Greek Revival, and a family whose winter lease was running out. In a 2012 Houzz account the homeowners described Geoffrey Richon's crew taking out fireplaces, chimneys, attic framing, walls, a leaky roof and the windows, and handing back an open-plan house they could move into on time. That is the scale this Gloucester firm works at: its Houzz profile puts a typical project between $50,000 and $2 million, with work listed in Gloucester, Ipswich, Rockport, Essex and Manchester.
Both Massachusetts credentials are current on the state registry, held by Tobias Richon — home improvement contractor registration #206649, active until 5 October 2026, and construction supervisor licence CS-087134, active until May 2027, whose registry "doing business as" line reads Geoffrey H Richon Company. One wrinkle worth raising on your contract: the company's own older registration, #161239 at the Duncan Street address, expired in October 2022, so the live registration sits in an individual's name rather than the corporation's.
The written history is short and dated. Three reviews exist, all on Houzz, all between 2012 and 2015, plus a single five-star Google rating with no text. Two came from homeowners — the Greek Revival rescue, and a 2015 client writing about repeat condo and mid-century-modern restoration work, including a solarium roof rebuilt at no charge. The third is not a customer at all: a landscape designer writing as a trade peer who shares clients and projects with the firm, so weigh it as a colleague's view rather than a client's. The permit trail runs longer — 16 permits between 2009 and 2023, in Manchester, Beverly, Gloucester, Newburyport and Danvers.
On credentials beyond the state registry, the Houzz profile lists Passive House Institute US Certified Builder and Energy Star Partner, which sits alongside the green-building and energy-efficient work it advertises there.
For a substantial North Shore project — a period house, an addition, a build with an energy target — this is a licensed builder with a long permit history and detailed accounts of careful work, even if those accounts are a decade old. Ask for two or three recent clients you can call, and confirm the October renewal of the registration before anyone starts.
