Gowdy Group Design Build, LLC

Six five-star reviews, and every one of them stops in 2020. That is the first thing to know about Gowdy Group Design Build, a Southborough design-build shop whose written reputation is uniformly warm and uniformly dated. What people hired them for is clear enough. A homeowner writing in May 2020 described a 24x24 addition that had to clear Conservation over wetland issues, then a family room converted to a garage with a mudroom, laundry, bathroom and family room added; "Addition is beautiful," they wrote. Two 2018 customers described bathrooms taken down to the studs and rebuilt, one adding that the price came in far below the other bids they had collected. A December 2017 reviewer had the company managing a new home build and said it stayed on schedule. The paperwork holds up better than the review timeline. Its Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration is active on the state registry, BBB has accredited the company since October 2020 and grades it A+, and BuildZoom's permit history shows 16 permitted jobs, mostly additions and finished basements around Northborough, Ashland, Westborough and Newton. BBB puts the business start at October 2008 and names Ted Gowdy as owner; the company's own site describes him as the principal, with 20-plus years designing, permitting and building single-family homes. Directory profiles also carry a construction supervisor number, CS-111073, and both Angi and HomeAdvisor list a membership in the Professional Remodelers Organization of New England. Two things to raise on the call. Angi's profile states the company does not offer free estimates and does not offer warranties, so pin down what a design fee covers and what happens if something fails after handover. Houzz puts typical jobs between $50,000 and $500,000, which makes this a whole-project firm rather than a small-repair one. One January 2020 customer noted the work took longer than planned, while still recommending them. The right call for a MetroWest homeowner planning an addition, a gut remodel or a custom build who wants one firm carrying design, permitting and the trades. Ask for recent references and photos of finished work: the reviews you can read online are six to eight years old, so the current crew is the part you will have to check yourself.