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About Us
Stone Creek Builders is committed to impeccable quality and personalized customer service. The relationship we build with every client is the foundation for a successful project. These relationships are based on excellent communication, integrity, quality craftsmanship, and client satisfaction.
Stone Creek Builders is comprised of highly skilled, closely knit professionals who work together to secure the success of each project. This passion has driven our past successes and will continue to motivate us long into the future. The relationships we have built with past clients, vendors, subcontractors, and colleagues ensure our continued success in building great projects.
Contact us for your next project!
We have a newly constructed Design Studio located at 20 Cambridge Drive, Suite I, Lower Level in Aberdeen, NJ. The Design Studio is by appointment only.
Services Provided
Custom Homes, Green Building, New Home Construction, Home Renovation
Areas Served
Colts Neck, Fairview, Holmdel, Union Beach, Matawan, Princeton, West Windsor, Manalapan
Awards
Stone Creek Builders has fulfilled the requirements of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 402, and has received certification to conduct lead-based paint renovation, repair and painting activities pursuant to 40CFR Part 745.89.
Category
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Business Details
Business Name
Stone Creek Builders
Phone Number
+1 732-566-0395
Website
Address
253 Main Street Suite 183 (billing only)
Matawan, NJ 07747
Licence Number
13VH01254400
Followers
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Credentials
4 Houzz Awards
4 Houzz Badges
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Write a Review
11 Reviews for Stone Creek Builders
Newest first
Marc Naparstek
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Stone creek has done work for me on a residential property and on my business property (complete build out). Stone Creek was extremely professional and completed the work timely and above expectations in both cases. They delivered services on time and exceeded expectations with completing required inspections by the township. They equally up to the task on the residential work they did as well. Timely on budget and easy to communicate with. I highly recommend them.
23 March, 2016
Mike Welty
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Stone Creek Builders has done two projects for me. In 2008 they built my custom home.
I was extremely pleased with their work and commitment to the project. They came in on budget and earlier than projected. I subsequently recommended them to neighbors and friends who also hired them on a number of projects in our community. In 2012 my home was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The day after the hurricane Mike Bruno the President of SCB called me to let me know that he and the SCB team would do whatever it took to get me, my wife and my infant son back in our home as soon as possible. Mike and his team started work on my house the first day that the town allowed entry and completed the work in record time. I will always be grateful to Mike and the SCB team for everything they did for me and my family during that horrible time. I give them my highest recommendation.
16 March, 2016
Duke Kohly
Average rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Called Stone Creek Builders for an estimate 5 weeks ago. The owner came and took a look at the work we were looking to have done. I explained to him what I'd like to have done and that I need to have the work completed within a certain time period. During all of this he seemed rather unmotivated and uninterested. He assured me he'd get back to me with a quote within a day or two at most. Fast forward 5 weeks. His secretary/assistant emails me saying he got "caught up in a commercial job." 5 weeks to give someone a quote? Horrendous and unprofessional. I'm glad I didn't hire after reading some of the reviews on here. Found a way better contractor to work with. Someone who actually takes pride in their work and didn't take 5 weeks for a quote. If it took 5 weeks for a quote, would the work have taken 5 years? Seemingly so.
6 March, 2016
Comment from Stone Creek Builders:
Duke,
Our apologies for not being able to get the proposal submitted to you in time for consideration. We are glad you found a contractor to work with and good luck with the project.
Our apologies for not being able to get the proposal submitted to you in time for consideration. We are glad you found a contractor to work with and good luck with the project.
Stone Creek Builders completely remodeled my entire bathroom several month ago. They were very professional and handled all phases of the project from obtaining the building permits, developing a detailed time/project schedule completing all renovations on time, up to final inspections.
Both the office staff as well as the different workers were extremely helpful and always willing to go the "extra mile" to get the job done correctly. I have used Stone Creek Builders on previous construction jobs and they continued to be rated #1 in my book. I would highly recommend them without any hesitation.
Mr. & Mrs. R. Mika
Holmdel,NJ
20 January, 2016
Ashley Rose
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
We recently used Stone Creek Builders for a full remodel of our kitchen and also some renovations our first floor and could not be happier with the process and end result. We have a two year old, so going into the experience of living in a construction area we were a bit hesitant, but Mike and his company made it as comfortable as possible between cleanup each day and scheduling around our family in order to still function in our home. The staff present each day were friendly and respectful and worked from morning till evening. Also, the scope of the project was fully laid out in our contract and was right on target with budget numbers. If we ever had any questions or wanted to change something we had an answer immediately and communication was seamless. In addition to the process, we could not be happier with the finished product. The kitchen came out beautiful, everything we asked for and more. Myself and my husband recommend Stone Creek Builders without reservation and plan on using them for upcoming projects.
17 January, 2016
Kristin Romeo
Average rating: 3 out of 5 stars
I don't typically write reviews, but after reading the most recent review I was inclined to write one because we had a somewhat similar experience. We hired Stone Creek for a basement renovation along with other minor updates throughout the house. Our initial contract/quote was for approx. $14k, in which the owner stressed to us that he very rarly submitted change orders unless they were absolutely necessary. In the beginning we were very pleased. There was great communication, all of the workers showed up on time, were very respectful to us and our house, and the workmanship was excellent. Then we started to run into some problems.
In our original contract it stated that we would be able to reuse the existing lights we had in our basement to save on cost, but then the electrician replaced all of the lights and we received a change order. Tried for over a week to just get an explanation, all while receiving multiple emailing urging us to approve the change order (even though the work had already been preformed). Finally spoke to the owner and he explained that he made a mistake when giving us the estimate and that we could in fact not reuse the existing lights. His exact words were also "if you don't want to pay for it, then don't pay", but we aren't like that and just wanted an explanation. Change order was approved and paid but that encounter seemed to cause tension throughout the remainder of our project.
We then started to run into delays. The first was because there was not enough tile ordered. On the first day of demo, and the only day the owner showed up to check on work, I asked him to let me know how much tile I needed to order. He told me a number, while standing out in the street as he pulled away and I even asked, don't you have to measure, but he assured me he knew how much we needed. Three weeks later, tile is delivered and it wasn't enough. Had to wait another three weeks before finishing the floors, which meant molding and painting couldn't be finished either.
Throughout the project we also failed multiple inspections, some of which failed more than once. We also failed twice due the Stone Creeks office not informing me that they had even scheduled inspections, so no one was home at the time. Eventually all inspections were passed, but it added a great deal of time onto our project, and the tension again began to rise.
We were told on multiple occasions that they expected to be finished with our job already, but that was out of our control and wasn't due to us adding anything to the scope. The last few weeks, the workers seemed very rushed and even told us that they were being hurried by the owner because they had another job to start. We also started to get different people in here each day working to finish everything up. The workmanship towards the end was nothing like what they started out by doing. We obviously started to question things and point out inconsistencies and even tried multiple times to get the owner out to look at the work being done, but he never showed up once. It got to the point where we had to take pictures and make a list of all the subpar work to send them before they sent the lead contractor back to our house to correct the work that had previously been done.
After yet another conversation with the owner, he told us that he was losing money on our project because he kept having to send guys out to fix things and it was taking much longer than expected. That was when we started to get nickel and dimed for all of the little things that were left to be finished. For example; in the basement they built and installed shelving in our laundry room and a closet and also installed molding and new doors throughout our house, but then they didn't want to paint the shelves, doors or molding. They basically said that where it mentioned painting in our contract, it was listed under the "basement" part of the renovation, so they were only painting the walls of the basement. They wanted an additional $1k to finish painting the remainder of the work. This was absurd to us that a contractor would think that leaving unfinished doors, molding and shelving would be considered a finished job but at that point, we just wanted to be done with this company and hired an outside painter to come in and finished their work for half the price. Throughout the back and forth about the painting in the end, their own workers were apologizing to us daily for what was going on and agreed that everything should have been painted but even told us that they were informed by the owner not to paint anything. This was just very petty in the end and was sad because for the most part, the workers were excellent and we were happy with the finished product, but the owner was very unprofessional and made us feel that our "little" job was not very important to them.
13 January, 2016
Comment from Stone Creek Builders:
Kristin & Anthony Romeo,
Thank you for your time in putting together this review. I wasn’t aware that you were unsatisfied with our performance. I spoke with Anthony a few months ago asking him for a recommendation for a hardware specialist at his company and he graciously responded with a contact person. At that time he didn’t mention that either of you were unhappy. Honestly I was shocked when I saw the review so I immediately called Anthony to discuss it. He said he was unaware of the review and would get back to me. Although I haven’t heard from him regarding the review we completely stand behind our work and workmanship warranty if there was anything that needed to be taken care of.
Addressing the issues you outlined I have added my comments:
Electrical- during the initial estimate Anthony mentioned that he would like to reuse the existing recessed lights to save money. In our proposal I detailed that the existing lights were to be reused. It became apparent that when the electrician showed up to perform the rough electrical the lights previously installed were not to code and installed without a permit. The lights previously installed were remodeling housings not new construction housings which are required when performing new construction work. At that time the electrician removed the incorrect lights and installed the new lights to meet code and pass inspection. He sent us a bill for the additional work which we passed on to you without mark-up. I’m not sure why you were not able to contact us for over a week but I do see on Co-Construct that you posted a question on 1/27/15 at 12:44 pm and I responded 15 minutes later at 12:59pm. I posted a photo of the communication. Understandably you were upset to have to spend more money on the recessed lights and after spending a considerable amount of time on the phone with Anthony discussing/debating the lights I said “don’t pay me for the lights”. At that point I didn’t know what else to say or do since the lights needed to be changed to meet code requirements. I figured the least I could do is give you the lights for free and maybe that would put it to rest. The electrician thought he was doing the right thing by changing the lights to maintain the schedule and in most cases clients appreciate that approach. To help the situation he billed $65.00 per recessed light instead of the market rate of $100 per recessed light. I realize now we should have stopped the project, cancelled the inspection, scheduled a meeting to discuss the lights and you could have decided at that time whether or not to move forward with the lights or cancel the whole project.
Tile- I had the measurements of the basement from the initial estimate and from measuring for other materials. I simply made a calculation error when I told you the tile quantity- I did a 20x20 calculation instead of including the closet. I didn’t miscalculate the tile because I didn’t care- it was simply a mistake- Let me clarify that we are not a change order driven company and simply ask to be paid for work that is not in the scope and or uncovered due to conditions we could not see. For example – when we removed the existing floor framing that was done over the basement slab we discovered that the existing basement floor was severely out of level. In the spirit of continuing with the project and not submitting an additional change order we paid for over $500 for floor leveler plus labor to level the floor for tile install and never charged you for it.
Regarding delays I went back through our daily job log- which is a detailed report of everything that happens on our projects each day. We started the project on January 15th and the final inspection was completed March 5th. I noted some highlights below:
January 15th – existing basement demo
January 20th – basement waterproofing company (by client)
January 21st – basement framing
January 22nd – electrical rough
January 23rd- electrical inspection
January 30th – framing inspection
February 2nd framing was completed, hvac completed
February 3rd – insulation inspection was passed and we started sheetrock
February 4th – sheetrock install
February 5th – spackle
February 6th – started tile
February 9th – spackle
February 11th – 16th – spackle, trim work, painting
February 17th- had electrical inspection scheduled – bad weather 5-8”of snow electrician could not make it to job. We called town to reschedule inspection but they would not reschedule so inspection failed-
February 18th -19th – electrical, painting and misc. carpentry- earliest the town would reschedule the electrical and plumbing inspection is 26th.
February 26th- inspectors never showed up
February 27th – painting
Thursday March 5th final building inspection.
All in all we ran a tight schedule and despite typical construction delays, inspection delays, weather delays etc. the project was completed within a reasonable time period.
Regarding the employees in your home I reviewed the time sheet logs and again the daily job report and we had a total of 6 different employees in your home not including the subcontractors and their employees- Each of our employees has a specialty which is why they were there at different time’s through-out the project. Naturally in a production environment we always have the next job to get to, and our employees understand that, additionally they know that they are only to perform work that is agreed upon.
I thank you for providing us with this learning experience, it’s an invaluable lesson in helping us choose clients that appreciate what we do to help them realize their renovation and remodeling goals.
Thanks again and please let me know if anything comes up in the future.
Thank you for your time in putting together this review. I wasn’t aware that you were unsatisfied with our performance. I spoke with Anthony a few months ago asking him for a recommendation for a hardware specialist at his company and he graciously responded with a contact person. At that time he didn’t mention that either of you were unhappy. Honestly I was shocked when I saw the review so I immediately called Anthony to discuss it. He said he was unaware of the review and would get back to me. Although I haven’t heard from him regarding the review we completely stand behind our work and workmanship warranty if there was anything that needed to be taken care of.
Addressing the issues you outlined I have added my comments:
Electrical- during the initial estimate Anthony mentioned that he would like to reuse the existing recessed lights to save money. In our proposal I detailed that the existing lights were to be reused. It became apparent that when the electrician showed up to perform the rough electrical the lights previously installed were not to code and installed without a permit. The lights previously installed were remodeling housings not new construction housings which are required when performing new construction work. At that time the electrician removed the incorrect lights and installed the new lights to meet code and pass inspection. He sent us a bill for the additional work which we passed on to you without mark-up. I’m not sure why you were not able to contact us for over a week but I do see on Co-Construct that you posted a question on 1/27/15 at 12:44 pm and I responded 15 minutes later at 12:59pm. I posted a photo of the communication. Understandably you were upset to have to spend more money on the recessed lights and after spending a considerable amount of time on the phone with Anthony discussing/debating the lights I said “don’t pay me for the lights”. At that point I didn’t know what else to say or do since the lights needed to be changed to meet code requirements. I figured the least I could do is give you the lights for free and maybe that would put it to rest. The electrician thought he was doing the right thing by changing the lights to maintain the schedule and in most cases clients appreciate that approach. To help the situation he billed $65.00 per recessed light instead of the market rate of $100 per recessed light. I realize now we should have stopped the project, cancelled the inspection, scheduled a meeting to discuss the lights and you could have decided at that time whether or not to move forward with the lights or cancel the whole project.
Tile- I had the measurements of the basement from the initial estimate and from measuring for other materials. I simply made a calculation error when I told you the tile quantity- I did a 20x20 calculation instead of including the closet. I didn’t miscalculate the tile because I didn’t care- it was simply a mistake- Let me clarify that we are not a change order driven company and simply ask to be paid for work that is not in the scope and or uncovered due to conditions we could not see. For example – when we removed the existing floor framing that was done over the basement slab we discovered that the existing basement floor was severely out of level. In the spirit of continuing with the project and not submitting an additional change order we paid for over $500 for floor leveler plus labor to level the floor for tile install and never charged you for it.
Regarding delays I went back through our daily job log- which is a detailed report of everything that happens on our projects each day. We started the project on January 15th and the final inspection was completed March 5th. I noted some highlights below:
January 15th – existing basement demo
January 20th – basement waterproofing company (by client)
January 21st – basement framing
January 22nd – electrical rough
January 23rd- electrical inspection
January 30th – framing inspection
February 2nd framing was completed, hvac completed
February 3rd – insulation inspection was passed and we started sheetrock
February 4th – sheetrock install
February 5th – spackle
February 6th – started tile
February 9th – spackle
February 11th – 16th – spackle, trim work, painting
February 17th- had electrical inspection scheduled – bad weather 5-8”of snow electrician could not make it to job. We called town to reschedule inspection but they would not reschedule so inspection failed-
February 18th -19th – electrical, painting and misc. carpentry- earliest the town would reschedule the electrical and plumbing inspection is 26th.
February 26th- inspectors never showed up
February 27th – painting
Thursday March 5th final building inspection.
All in all we ran a tight schedule and despite typical construction delays, inspection delays, weather delays etc. the project was completed within a reasonable time period.
Regarding the employees in your home I reviewed the time sheet logs and again the daily job report and we had a total of 6 different employees in your home not including the subcontractors and their employees- Each of our employees has a specialty which is why they were there at different time’s through-out the project. Naturally in a production environment we always have the next job to get to, and our employees understand that, additionally they know that they are only to perform work that is agreed upon.
I thank you for providing us with this learning experience, it’s an invaluable lesson in helping us choose clients that appreciate what we do to help them realize their renovation and remodeling goals.
Thanks again and please let me know if anything comes up in the future.
Christina Schlachter
Average rating: 1 out of 5 stars
We are currently remodeling our home and we chose Stone Creek based on our realtor's recommendation. I have never been so disappointed in a renovation contractor, and we have renovated 4 homes. The CONS: 2 months behind schedule, poor financial management, inconsistent quality.
2 Months Behind Schedule: We ended up having to cut our remodel in half and find other contractors to complete the work because the company was so far behind schedule.
Poor financial management: The company has sent us multiple invoices - all with different amounts due (some we have over paid and are under budget, others we owe money and are over budget, but all for the same amount of work). Now, we are over 2 months behind on the project (even with the reduced scope) and they are nickel and diming us. The company insists that shower doors are not part of a contract, which may or may not be the case, but that would have been good to know earlier in the process. The company put in a new fireplace, but right now there is drywall and a mantel. He has told us it will cost more to put stone on the fireplace, so as of now, he has completed his work unless we pay more and the completed work is a plastered drywall around the fireplace.
Inconsistent quality: Some work has been done exceptionally well and other work (plumbing fixtures leaking), have been done incredibly poorly and we are hiring other contractors to fix the problems. Mike Bruno, the head of the company, has told us on two occasions he does not care about our project. The first time was after we told him we were cutting the project in half when he told us "I don't like to not care about the quality of my work, but I am getting there" and most recently emailing us saying he does not care when our fireplace is functional.
The PROS: The subcontractors working for him are good and timely when they needed to come and fix problems.
29 October, 2015
Comment from Stone Creek Builders:
Schedule. Due to permit delays with the township- the permits were eventually approved on August 14th, 2015- (Permit Number 15-00281- Fair Haven) Due to the permit delays and in order to obtain the permit sooner- you made the judgment call to reduce the scope of the project and remove the addition over the garage. The other contractors you hired to perform other work was not in our original scope and not part of our original permit submittal. The fact that the other contractors were able to start their work after the 14th was due to the fact that they had not obtained permits to remodel the basement & install siding on the house. Since permits were not obtained by the other contractors we had problems obtaining our inspections.
We started the project on August 14th the day the permits were obtained and did an extensive remodel which included the following work: floor framing, structural framing, installing a new header and new sliding door, electrical, second zone of heating and air conditioning in attic including duct work, gas piping, main bathroom remodel, plumbing work, obtained rough electrical, plumbing and framing inspections, installed new oak flooring through-out the entire home, sanded stained and refinished the floors , installed sheetrock, tiled the main bathroom and painted the entire home in 19 working days- I was there with a crew of men on Labor Day so you could move in that same day. After you moved into the home we remained in constant communication and completed other items including a master bathroom.
Poor Financial Management: we provide all of our clients with estimates and invoices generated through our accounting system. We established a budget and maintained that budget unless there were changes deviating from the original scope. We communicated all costs via email to you and your husband and obtained approvals prior to ordering any special order materials and doing work. The fireplace was a change order and we presented 2 different options to you neither of which included stone surround. After discussing the options with you, we sent you to our stone fabricator to select the stone and told you to pay him directly for the stone and the install. Similarly the shower door is an allowance since the final price cannot be obtained until selections are made and the shower is templated.
The plumbing leak was due to an existing condition on the second lavatory vent that remained after we removed the sink in the dressing room. The plumber noticed the leak, opened the ceiling, repaired the pipe, we patched the ceiling within several hours. I was not aware of any additional repair work that other contractors performed because I was not made aware of it.
Quality: of course I care about the quality of our work and the experience of our clients. My comment to you was in the context of explaining that the expectations you had were not possible given the amount of work to complete.
In closing I am sorry that you are not satisfied with your experience. Despite the efforts of our team, office staff, subcontractors & vendors we could not meet your expectations of completing a 2-3 month remodel in 19 days.
As you know I have emailed you several times this week requesting that you remove this review because it is a misrepresentation of the facts and service you received. We stand behind our work and would welcome a meeting to discuss any open issues you have.
We started the project on August 14th the day the permits were obtained and did an extensive remodel which included the following work: floor framing, structural framing, installing a new header and new sliding door, electrical, second zone of heating and air conditioning in attic including duct work, gas piping, main bathroom remodel, plumbing work, obtained rough electrical, plumbing and framing inspections, installed new oak flooring through-out the entire home, sanded stained and refinished the floors , installed sheetrock, tiled the main bathroom and painted the entire home in 19 working days- I was there with a crew of men on Labor Day so you could move in that same day. After you moved into the home we remained in constant communication and completed other items including a master bathroom.
Poor Financial Management: we provide all of our clients with estimates and invoices generated through our accounting system. We established a budget and maintained that budget unless there were changes deviating from the original scope. We communicated all costs via email to you and your husband and obtained approvals prior to ordering any special order materials and doing work. The fireplace was a change order and we presented 2 different options to you neither of which included stone surround. After discussing the options with you, we sent you to our stone fabricator to select the stone and told you to pay him directly for the stone and the install. Similarly the shower door is an allowance since the final price cannot be obtained until selections are made and the shower is templated.
The plumbing leak was due to an existing condition on the second lavatory vent that remained after we removed the sink in the dressing room. The plumber noticed the leak, opened the ceiling, repaired the pipe, we patched the ceiling within several hours. I was not aware of any additional repair work that other contractors performed because I was not made aware of it.
Quality: of course I care about the quality of our work and the experience of our clients. My comment to you was in the context of explaining that the expectations you had were not possible given the amount of work to complete.
In closing I am sorry that you are not satisfied with your experience. Despite the efforts of our team, office staff, subcontractors & vendors we could not meet your expectations of completing a 2-3 month remodel in 19 days.
As you know I have emailed you several times this week requesting that you remove this review because it is a misrepresentation of the facts and service you received. We stand behind our work and would welcome a meeting to discuss any open issues you have.
CK Initial Designs LLC
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
I am a full scale interior designer with the majority of cliental that requires design + build > Working alongside Mike and his team is both professional-budget conscious and meticulous. This allows the client the freedom to fully enjoy the process from start to finish.
13 June, 2015
Silbergrau Katz
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
SCB renovated my two bathrooms in 2013; the project was a collaborative design-build with owner-supplied furnishings & fixtures. Their price was competitive, and the workmanship well-done. The project communications were excellent, leveraging the Co-construct software platform for logging communications & sharing documents.
Sometimes their interim-milestones slipped, but then they would redouble efforts to get the project back on-track; they finished within 5 days of the stated duration excluding 1 non-critical punchlist item. As no project is perfect, we had 1-2 disagreements about scope and responsibility during the project, but SCB handled them professionally, resulting in reasonable compromises.
I did need to be regularly present on-site to assure that design details were being implemented to my specifications, as I had a very specific vision of what I wanted which was only documented by my rough hand drawings and bullet-lists. SCB was very good about making adjustments & corrections while the project was in progress, and asking me the right questions to assure no design aspects had been overlooked.
I'm doing another renovation project in a different state, and haven't been able to find another company to match SCB's price point and commitment levels. If I could drop-ship them here, I would.
14 March, 2014
Kati Curtis Design
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Professional, honest, top quality work on time and budget. We interviewed many local contractors for our coastal New Jersey projects and wouldn't work with anyone else.
29 November, 2013
Sheila Rich Interiors, LLC
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars
I hired Stone Creek Builders to work on this beach front condo renovation for my clients in Sea Bright. We successfully brought the house out of the 70's and into fresh new look that has been published in décor magazines several times. The house withstood the force of hurricane Sandy with very little damage.
26 May, 2013Last modified:24 July, 2013
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