Pine Cone Construction Inc.

Pine Cone Construction works out of Newton Center and builds custom houses across a tight ring of towns — Newton, Needham, Wellesley and Weston. What the company stresses about itself is its crew. It says it keeps its own employees for excavating, framing, interior finish, custom carpentry, cabinet installation and stairs rather than leaning on subcontractors, and credits that for its control over timeline, quality and cost. Six project galleries sit on its Houzz page. The Better Business Bureau lists four employees, grades the business A+, and records it as not accredited. Two things to pin down before calling. Nobody has written a review of the company on either page, so there is no customer account to weigh — ask for addresses of houses finished in the last year or two and talk to those owners. And the tenure story depends on the source: the company claims more than 30 years of experience, while BBB records the business as starting on 1 January 2006. Worth a conversation if you want a builder with its own carpentry crew for a Newton-area custom house or addition, as long as you do the reference-checking yourself.