MJ Russo Construction, LLC

Stone is the through-line here. MJ Russo Construction builds the hard parts of a yard — walls, patios, walkways, driveways, bluestone and granite installations, outdoor kitchens and fireplaces — along with the excavation and drainage that goes underneath. Mike Russo has run it as an LLC out of Swampscott since November 2005, with five employees and a second location on Endicott Street in Peabody, and BBB grades the company A+ without it being an accredited business. What is written down about them, though, is thin and old, and it pulls hard in two directions. In a 2014 review, a designer who had worked with Mike on multiple projects, including their own home, called the stonework beautiful and described the crew as taking pride in the job. In 2017, a customer rated the company one star, writing that they were "extremely unsatisfied" with the workmanship and with its ability to finish on any reasonable schedule. Houzz averages those two out to 3.0, and nothing has been added on either side since. That makes the call easy to plan: ask about the two things the 2017 review named. Pin down a written completion date and what happens if it slips, and ask to walk a stone job they finished recently — there are nine projects on their Houzz profile to start the conversation from. For hardscape rather than lawn care — a wall that has to sit right, a patio that has to drain — this is a masonry outfit with two decades behind it and a clean BBB grade. Just do the reference-checking yourself, because the written trail stops in 2017.