We contracted with Urban Home Builders and Gary Zygmont for a complete renovation of our 1940's…read morecottage. This was no run-of-the-mill job ... Gary and his team took our house down to the studs, destroyed and rebuilt the back 1/3 of the house to replace a crappy patio foundation that had been closed in at some point by previous owners, and added a second level.
From the get-go, we had a stellar experience with Gary. During our introductory meeting, he spent as much time as we needed talking with us about our project, his process, and the way he does business, and did an exceptional job of setting our expectations up front. His ballpark estimate was right in line with the other bid we obtained, which immediately gave us confidence in his estimating. We signed with him without hesitation.
About a month before the project was set to start, I realized I had completely lost my mind ... it was a *terrible* idea to move out of my home for 7 months. I was too chicken to call Gary on the phone, so I sent him an email telling him that I thought we should delay the project for at least 6 months because I just couldn't deal with it. Like the best therapist, Gary listened with compassion and then broke down my monumental, paralyzing mountain of stuff that had to be accomplished into its most basic elements. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but you're almost done with the hard work," he told us. He sent a list of what we needed to do, with deadlines (this is something he did countless times during the project, which was great!), and helped me get a grip. Much to my husband's relief, the project proceeded as planned.
Did I mention that we expected to be out of our home for 7 months? Gary finished almost 2 months early. How? In my opinion, it's because he respects and watches out for his subs, and they return the favor by moving mountains to get stuff done for him. It was truly a joy to watch -- at one point during the project, one of our neighbors remarked that there were almost always people at our house, and they were *always* working.
Speaking of our neighbors, living next to a project like ours can be a nightmare. Gary walked the neighborhood before the project started, talked with our neighbors about what to expect, and left letters with each neighbor with his personal contact information. I know of two times during the project when neighbors had complaints ... in both cases, Gary immediately -- and very diplomatically -- addressed them.
Now that we're back in our gorgeous "new" home and we've paid the last bill, Gary's level of service hasn't faltered a bit. We've reached out to him with a couple questions and issues, and he has responded immediately, reached out to subs or vendors as necessary, and obtained exactly the "fixes" we believe are necessary - at no cost to us. The workmanship throughout our home is absolutely gorgeous, and the materials are of excellent quality and exactly as specified by us and our architect. He even added a number of "Gary-isms," such as rebuilding a fence for us (not in the contract -- we had planned to have him reinstall the old fence) because it faces the street and the old fence would have looked terrible against our shiny house.
I can't recommend Gary and Urban Home Builders enough.