Today, Carpenter & MacNeille, headquartered in Essex, is synonymous with exquisite design-build services. The firm offers homeowners anything they need to design, build, manage, or maintain their dream house, from architecture and interior design to cabinetmaking and carpentry to white-glove concierge services. But 30 years ago, when the company was first founded, the concept of a combined design-build firm was so novel that even their insurance company wasn’t sure how to approach an architect and a builder starting a 50-50 combined business together under one roof.
“We went to an insurance person and said, ‘We need professional liability and general liability because we do both,’” remembers Robert MacNeille, AIA, president, design principal, and cofounder of Carpenter & MacNeille. “And this person had never heard of that before and didn’t know how to write the policies because it was just brand new.”
Despite the newness, the concept “made perfect sense” to MacNeille, an architect, and Terry Carpenter, a builder, who met for the first time through their wives at dinner in late January 1996. Their synergy was immediate, and “within an hour,” the two were not only finishing each other’s sentences but also discussing starting a business together. “We got very excited about our common interest in having a design and construction company that valued both aspects of the process equally to the betterment of the overall result,” MacNeille says. “We decided, let’s just do it.”
BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION
By June of that year, they incorporated their business and started work immediately. “Within five years, we had multiple large projects come into our little new company,” MacNeille says. Now, Carpenter & MacNeille is celebrating 30 years in business and has grown from two people to a diverse collection of 85 artisans and craftsmen, including architects, interior designers, project managers, property managers, cabinetmakers, carpenters, painters, and more. Its five coordinated service groups offer architecture, interior design, construction, woodworking, and property services, either together or à la carte. “If a client hires us to, say, build a house, we bring all of that, all of those different skill sets and talents to bear,” MacNeille says.
The company has also weathered some hardships, including the unexpected death in 2007 of cofounder Carpenter, who was not only an incredible talent, but a kind and compassionate leader who’d always check in on people, asking about everything from their dogs to their kids, with “no sense of hierarchy.” “We both really cared a lot about our employees, but that was a particular strength of his,” MacNeille says. “That was a big part of who Terry was. He was inspiring to younger people, especially in the construction part of the company.”
GROWING WITH INTENTION
MacNeille said the prospect of continuing without Carpenter was “nerve-racking” at times. But ultimately his confidence in what they’d spent more than a decade building together offered the strength and a strong foundation to persevere. In the years since, Carpenter & MacNeille has continued to grow and expand with careful intention, including moving to its current headquarters in Essex, opening a second location in Wellesley, expanding into a variety of service areas, and, most recently, opening a third office in North Hampton, New Hampshire. In addition, the company added a second partner, Michael T. Gray, AIA, who also serves as managing director.
“Stability and growth are the two things that will keep us going. We have to have stability in order to have growth that’s going to last,” he says. “And you have to have growth because it promotes employee retention. You can provide opportunities for them to grow their career with the company.” Through it all, the company has never lost sight of the mantra that many employees have adopted: The importance of doing things “the C&M way” with a high level of care and craftsmanship.
“I think that’s sort of a rough approximation about what everybody here feels,” MacNeille says. “It’s not that we do the same thing. If you’ve seen our projects, they all look different. But we take this basic approach that it’s going to have fundamentally sound values in terms of design and construction.” MacNeille also draws inspiration from historic homes on the North Shore that are still beautiful and sturdy after decades, or even centuries, thanks to superior craftsmanship. “That’s what we want to do,” he said. “We want our houses to be around 100, 200 years from now.”
