J Stefan Contracting

Steps down a hillside to a perched beach, a retaining wall rebuilt mortared and flat-topped, a patio stripped of asphalt and re-laid in pavers — the J Stefan Contracting jobs homeowners describe are outdoor and heavy. Jeremie Stefan runs the company out of Hampton, New Hampshire, and Houzz puts its reach across the seacoast: New Hampshire, parts of Maine, and Massachusetts towns including Newburyport, Amesbury and Salisbury. A 2019 customer wrote that Jeremie came out the same day they called and had the crew delivering materials the following week; another that year saw a retaining wall rebuilt within one calendar week, most of the work done by two masons. A 2020 reviewer described the crew working solidly for a week to finish a first phase covering the patio, hillside steps, walkways and driveway, with the perched beach and lake steps done once DES allowed the work. A 2018 homeowner who gathered four quotes said this one was the most reasonable on both approach and price. Starting was the slower part: three reviewers between 2018 and 2020 said the job began later than estimated, one of them pointing to days of rain and a schedule crammed before cold weather. The asphalt draws the sharper criticism. A 2020 reviewer said they were promised 2-1/2 of compacted asphalt and found the finished pavement less than an inch thick, with weeds coming up inside a year. A 2019 reviewer reported rocks working up through a new driveway and weeds in the footpath, and got no answer to an email asking about seal coating. A third, also writing in 2019, said the crew dug up a section of fresh asphalt and patched it rather than starting over, and the patch cracked within the year. Two HomeAdvisor reviewers in 2022 raised money. In May, one wrote that they signed a contract on 20 March, dropped off half the money as a $2,100 deposit, then watched the start slide until the company stopped replying. In November, another said they had paid half the agreed price for a driveway that never happened and had spent the time since trying to get it back. The written accounts run from 2018 to 2022. HomeAdvisor shows 4.6 from 53 ratings against 199 projects; Google shows 4 from 20. The strongest fit is stone and paver work — walls, patios, walkways — which is where the praise is thickest. If you are hiring them to pave, put the asphalt depth and compaction in the contract, and tie payments to finished stages rather than a large deposit up front.