Bay State Building Specialties

Bay State Building Specialties has supplied and installed building specialty items — chalkboards and tackboards, projection screens, window treatments, and acoustical wall panels — for commercial and institutional construction across New England since 1947. The company says it started as a chalkboard and tackboard maker founded by G. J. Healy and Preston Maxwell, later absorbing the former Bay State Blackboard Inc., and that Gil Lentol became partner and president in 2006 before taking sole ownership in 2015. Third-party business listings repeat the company's own account of decades spent outfitting landmark New England buildings, among them Harvard, MIT, Boston Public Library, and Massachusetts General Hospital. This is a commercial subcontractor and supplier, not a homeowner-facing remodeling crew, and its public reputation right now is thin and rough. Google shows just 2 stars from 8 ratings, and the small handful of written reviews collected since 2024 skew sharply negative. The recurring theme isn't installation quality at all — it's fraud: a review on Birdeye describes suspected unauthorized credit card charges tied to dealing with the business. The Better Business Bureau lists 75 years in business but has never accredited the company and says it doesn't have enough information to issue it a rating. The one specific thing worth raising before booking is the payment complaints — ask about them directly, and be cautious about leaving a card on file until you get a clear answer. This is a Division 10 building-specialties supplier built for institutional and commercial jobs, not a general home-remodeling contractor — confirm the scope of work actually matches before treating it as a fit, and get a straight answer on the credit card issue before paying.