The Portland Group - Boston

Ask what The Portland Group's Gerard Street address in Roxbury actually is, and the answer isn't a repair crew — it's a wholesale HVAC and plumbing supply house that the company says traces back to 1930, when Irving "Speed" Rose and Benjamin Fox grew a small Portland Street hardware store into a family business. Four generations later it's still family-run, with Mike Fox as CEO and Ben Rose as President, and branches reaching from Boston out to Worcester, Manchester, and Providence. That distinction is worth sitting with: by its own description this is a supply counter and showroom, not a crew that installs or repairs equipment inside someone's house, even though several directories file it under HVAC and air-conditioning contractor listings. The one detailed account from January describes a trip in for HVAC parts, with the staff called "knowledgeable, quick and respectful" — a vote for the counter experience, not a finished job. On Google it sits at 3.8 stars from 13 ratings, and a similar split turns up on another listing: four five-star reviews against one one-star and one three-star. Worth asking before making the trip: whether this is the right stop for buying equipment and parts versus finding someone to actually do the installation, since nothing here describes a job done inside a home. For a pro or a confident do-it-yourselfer sourcing HVAC or plumbing hardware near Roxbury, the counter service gets a good word; anyone looking to hire an installer should keep looking for that piece.