Over 100 feet of two-tiered retaining wall torn out and rebuilt, plus 500 square feet of new patio and the stairs down to the pool — that was one backyard, described by the homeowner in a 2016 review, and it is a fair picture of the size of job Terra Landscape & Construction takes on. The company works out of 205 Parkerville Road in Southborough; BBB puts its start at December 2012, and its Houzz page lists a typical job between $3,000 and $250,000 across roughly 42 MetroWest and Greater Boston towns.
The work is hardscape and earthmoving. Retaining walls, walkways and patios, masonry, demolition, excavation and commercial snow removal are what its BBB listing names, and the customer accounts line up with that. Drainage keeps recurring: a 2021 review described a bluestone patio with a hot-tub area, a stone wall, re-routed drainage and a new drywell, and a 2020 review covered a Jamaica Plain commercial yard cleared of a century of debris, graded so the new asphalt would drain, and tied into the storm system with a dry well of its own.
Its Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration is active under the company's own name — the one credential here checked against the state registry rather than taken from a listing. BBB grades it A+, though it is not a BBB accredited business, and BBB separately lists a Massachusetts Department of Public Safety construction supervisor licence for it.
The catch is age and volume. Google shows 5 stars across 7 ratings; Angi and HomeAdvisor show 5.0 from the same two reviews, both filed in July 2022, one of them with no text at all. The substantial write-ups run 2016 to 2021. Every one of them named the same person, Daniel, and customers writing in 2017 and 2021 also mentioned his wife Fran handling scheduling and payment updates; an undated Southborough municipal listing names Daniel Ribero at that same Parkerville Road address. Reviewers describe a small, owner-present crew, and what they wrote is unanimous — but it is old.
One thing worth raising directly: its Houzz page claims certification by the Better Business Bureau, while BBB's own profile says the business is not accredited. Ask about that, and ask for local references from the past year or two, since nothing in writing covers the recent stretch.
For a substantial outdoor build — walls, patios, grading, drainage — the past jobs customers described are exactly that shape, and the state registration is current. Confirm insurance and a written schedule before booking, and ask to see finished work from the last couple of seasons.