Fernandes Masonry, Inc.

Fernandes Masonry is a commercial mason — the subcontractor a general contractor brings in to lay up a school, a municipal building or an apartment block, not the crew that repoints a house chimney. Architectural Record credited it as the mason contractor on Foundry 101 in Cambridge, a CambridgeSeven-designed project, in March 2024. Its own site describes new construction, renovation and restoration masonry — brick veneer, concrete masonry, architectural precast and cast stone — across Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, largely on commercial, education and municipal jobs. The scale is unusual for a masonry firm. A 2014 SouthCoast Today piece put it at as many as 120 employees at a time; its Better Business Bureau file lists 65; its retirement plan covers 199 participants. Four brothers who emigrated from Portugal founded it in 1997, the company says, with Victor Fernandes as owner, and its Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Office Portuguese Business Enterprise certification is active through June 2027. In 2008 the firm joined the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build for a Maynard family. The written reviews are a different story, and not one of them comes from a customer. A March 2025 reviewer described a worker urinating in a parking lot across the street. Two others, in August 2024 and December 2021, describe company trucks cutting drivers off — on SR24 and in Easton — both claiming damage to their cars. The December 2021 driver said they had dash-cam footage, photos and a police report, that a project manager initially agreed the company was at fault, and that liability was refused three months later; the same account appears on Birdeye. A 2022 reviewer called the workers verbally abusive. Google's 3.3 across 13 ratings rests on that. There is a public enforcement trail as well. Violation Tracker lists a 2023 federal OSHA workplace safety penalty of $9,041, and OSHA's own site carries an inspection record for the company. A 2011 SouthCoast Today report said the firm and Victor Fernandes were fined $15,000 total for two violations. A 2008 report described the company suing S.B. General Contracting for wrongful termination after being taken off the masonry at the Fairhaven Recreation and Senior Center in 2002 — the general contractor's stated reason was very poor work, which the suit disputed. For a homeowner after repointing or a patio, this isn't the outfit. For a builder or owner's rep weighing them on a commercial or institutional package, the project credits are real and checkable — ask for the full OSHA inspection history and current experience modification rate, references from the general contractors on recent jobs, and how the vehicle-damage claims were resolved.