Howell Custom Building Group

Howell Custom Building Group works at the top of the North Shore market. BuildZoom's permit file shows sixteen pulled projects — several six-figure additions, barn renovations, and a $937,000 accessory building — and its Houzz profile puts a typical job between $500,000 and $5 million. This is a design-build shop for the whole-house job, not the weekend punch list. Steve and Susan Howell run it out of Lawrence, and the company says it has been at this since 1997, pairing engineering and project-management backgrounds with marketing, and claims 800-plus completed projects over 25 years. Garrett Moynihan heads preconstruction and Scott Graham construction; the company says its project managers and lead carpenters carry construction supervisor licences. Massachusetts confirms the top of that: its construction supervisor licence CS-068232 and its home improvement contractor registration 175166 are both active in the state registry. What is thin is what customers have written down. Houzz shows a 5.0 average across 38 ratings and 17 Houzz awards; Google sits at 4.3 across three. One review body exists anywhere — a 2024 Google post praising Garrett and saying the Howell team cares about its customers. The award shelf says how the trade sees them: 2021 PRISM golds for a kitchen remodel and for outdoor living, PRO New England gold for whole houses over $500k in 2021 and 2022, and Best of North Shore Home Editor's Choice from 2016 through 2022. Far less tells you what living through one of their builds is like. Two things are worth raising on the call. The company's site calls itself a Certified Lead-Safe firm, while BuildZoom lists its EPA renovation record as inactive and at one point cancelled — ask for the current certificate, since lead-safe practice matters on any pre-1978 North Shore house. BuildZoom also shows an older Massachusetts home improvement registration, 123237, as cancelled; the active one is the newer number. Its BBB file carries an A+ grade but is not BBB accredited, and records the business start date as 2001 rather than the 1997 the company claims. If you are planning a large addition, a whole-house renovation, or a custom build, and you want a team that runs a formal preconstruction and estimating phase before anyone swings a hammer, this is the kind of outfit to interview. Ask for recent client references directly — the written trail is short for a builder this established.