Longfellow Design Build

Two numbers frame this one: a clean 5.0 across 20 Google ratings, and a 4.7 across 23 on Houzz that includes two one-star accounts. Both are true, and the gap is where the useful reading sits. Longfellow Design Build works out of 549 Columbus Ave in Boston's South End as a design-build firm — architects, engineers and builders on one contract. Homeowners who hired them describe the whole range: a full home addition and renovation where the in-house architects brought ideas without overriding the owners' plan; a 100-year-old Harwich Port cottage whose original fir paneling and flooring were restored while HVAC, electrical and plumbing were retrofitted around them, in a review posted in August 2025; a loft redone in February 2025 around its exposed brick; two decks rebuilt in September 2025. In a 2017 review, a homeowner described owner Mark Bogosian working through sight lines and natural light on a tear-down and rebuild of their three-bedroom house. The praise is unusually people-shaped. Bill Penny, Ciara, Nolan, Brian, Hailey — the same first names recur across separate 2025 reviews, and repeat customers come back naming them. Its BBB page is an A+, accredited since March 2014, and Houzz lists a run of industry awards, including BRAGB Builder of the Year for 2026 and Best of Boston Home for high-end remodeling in 2025 and 2026. Houzz also lists a licence number, #176959, though that is the directory's own record rather than anything confirmed against the state registry. The two things worth raising both come from 2024. In an October 2024 review, a homeowner described paying a $3,000 design fee, receiving a rough CAD drawing, and then a quote that later bids beat by 80 to 150 percent — with the refund request refused; the same reviewer described a pricing structure of cost plus 20 percent. In a July 2024 review, a kitchen renovation had run eight months without finishing, with target dates that went unanswered and materials not ordered when promised. Nothing in the last six months echoes either, but they are specific enough to be worth asking about directly. So: if you want one team carrying a large renovation, addition or rebuild from drawings through finish carpentry, that is exactly the work this record is built on. Before signing, pin down what the design fee buys, whether it is credited against construction, and get the schedule and the cost-plus markup in writing.