FOURTH-GENERATION MASON | WORCESTER COUNTY, MA
Stone fireplaces, veneer, walls, patios, walkways, steps, chimneys, and foundations. Andrew Mercurio is a fourth-generation mason, and ARM Construction self-performs every bit of this work.
Most general contractors subcontract their masonry. ARM Construction is a masonry company that grew into a general contractor, which is a different thing entirely and it shows up in the work.
Andrew Mercurio is a fourth-generation mason. He came up in stone the way his family did, and built ARM Construction into a full general contracting company from that foundation. The practical consequence is that when you hire us for stonework, you are not getting a coordinator who found a mason with an opening in his schedule. You are getting the trade the company was built on, done by the people whose name is on the truck.
It is also the reason we can take on additions, ADUs, and conversions that a lot of remodeling companies pass on. Those projects rely heavily on the foundation, and the foundation is masonry.
Fireplaces and full-height stone surrounds. Full masonry fireplaces and natural stone veneer over an existing firebox or a new insert, including floor-to-ceiling stone surrounds. This is the work that shows, and it is the work where coursing, joint width, and stone selection separate a wall of rocks from a fireplace.
Natural stone veneer. Exterior and interior, on foundations, columns, chimneys, entryways, and accent walls. Fieldstone, ledgestone, granite, and cultured stone depending on the look and the budget.
Walls. Retaining walls that hold back real grade, freestanding walls, and the New England fieldstone walls that already run through most properties in this county and often need rebuilding rather than replacing.
Patios, walkways, and steps. Paver patios and walkways in running bond, herringbone, and other patterns with proper soldier course borders, plus bluestone, granite steps, and stone landings.
Chimneys and repair. Rebuilds, crowns, caps, flashing, and repointing, including on older homes where matching the original mortar is the entire job.
Foundations and structural masonry. Footings and foundation walls for additions, underpinning for garage conversions, egress openings cut through basement foundation walls, and repairs to the fieldstone and rubble foundations under older Worcester County houses.
Almost every failed wall, patio, and set of steps we are called to look at failed for the same two reasons, and neither of them is the stone.
The first is frost. Worcester County ground freezes deep enough that anything set on an inadequate base will heave and settle every single year. A patio laid on four inches of loose fill looks perfect in October and has a lip you catch your toe on by April. A retaining wall without a proper footing below frost depth will lean within a few seasons. This is why real masonry in this climate is mostly excavation and base preparation, with the visible stone as the last ten percent of the effort.
The second is water. Water that cannot get away from a wall builds hydrostatic pressure behind it and pushes it out. Water that sits against a chimney or a foundation gets into the joints, freezes, expands, and opens them a fraction of a millimeter at a time until the joint is gone. Drainage behind retaining walls, pitch on patios and walkways, proper flashing where masonry meets the house, and a chimney crown that actually sheds water are not upgrades. They are the difference between masonry that lasts thirty years and masonry that needs attention in five.
We build for the climate we work in, which is the advantage of being local rather than a company that learned the trade somewhere with a shorter winter.
This is where a lot of well-intentioned masonry work damages the thing it was meant to preserve, and it comes up constantly on the older homes in Princeton, Sterling, Holden, and the village centers around the county.
Historic masonry was laid with soft, lime-based mortar. That was not a limitation of the era, it was the design. The mortar was deliberately weaker than the brick or stone around it, so that when the wall moved, and every wall moves, the mortar took the stress and the masonry did not. Mortar joints are meant to be the sacrificial element. Repointing is normal maintenance.
Modern mortars are much higher in Portland cement and much harder. Repoint an 1830s chimney or a fieldstone foundation with that, and you have created joints stronger than the material they sit in. Now when the wall moves or moisture gets in and freezes, the stress has nowhere to go except into the brick or stone face. It spalls. The face comes off. And unlike a deteriorated joint, which you simply repoint again, a spalled historic brick or a delaminated stone face is not coming back.
Matching mortar to the original is most of the work on historic masonry, and getting it wrong is the most expensive avoidable mistake in this trade. If you have an older home in this county and someone has quoted you a repointing job without asking a single question about the existing mortar, get another opinion.
Masonry is priced by the job rather than by the square foot, because the visible surface is rarely what determines the effort. What moves a number is usually below grade or behind the face.
Excavation and base. A patio or wall on undisturbed, well-draining ground is a fraction of the cost of one on a slope, on wet ground, or where the existing base has to be dug out and rebuilt. Access matters here too. A backyard a machine can reach is materially cheaper than one where everything is moved by wheelbarrow.
Material. Natural stone, cultured veneer, and concrete pavers span a wide range, and within natural stone the spread between a common fieldstone and a selected, sized, dry-stack-quality stone is significant.
Pattern and detail. Running bond costs less to install than herringbone. A straight wall costs less than a curved one with a soldier course border. Dry-stack coursing that reads cleanly takes more time at the wall than a mortared joint that hides a multitude of decisions.
Structural requirement. A garden wall and a wall holding back four feet of grade are different projects with different footings, drainage, and engineering.
We price masonry after seeing the site, because the honest answer to what it costs is under the grass.
We do masonry and stonework in Worcester, Holden, Princeton, Sterling, West Boylston, and Boylston, along with Shrewsbury, Leominster, Westborough, Northborough, Southborough, and Grafton.
This county is stone country. Fieldstone walls run through the woods on properties where nobody has farmed in a hundred and fifty years, and the older houses sit on rubble and fieldstone foundations laid by hand. A fair amount of our work is rebuilding, extending, or repairing masonry that somebody's great-grandfather built, which is a good way to spend a career and a reason to get it right.
Andrew holds Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License #CS-093044, issued in 2011, and ARM Construction & Management Inc holds Home Improvement Contractor Registration #153199. Both are active and verifiable through the Commonwealth.
What Our Customers Say
I can't say enough good things! I needed a small finish job done at the last minute, and Andrew made it happen quickly and without any stress. The craftsmanship was perfect and everything looks amazing. I'm extremely happy and would recommend him to anyone!
Andrew and his team are detail-oriented. They are skilled and helped me understand the process of renovating my kitchen. Fantastic communication & high quality service! I am so lucky to have them and recommend them to anyone! When they built my deck, it was so fast & efficient! Call Andrew, you won't regret it
Andrew replaced a garden window in my kitchen, and a sliding door. He did a meticulous job, and went above and beyond to accommodate some special requests that I had. His attention to detail and willingness to do whatever it took to make me happy didn't go unnoticed. Will definitely use him each and every time!
Here is what Worcester County homeowners ask us most about stonework. If your question is not here, call us at (774) 249-0221.
Almost always because of what is underneath, not the stone. Frost depth in Worcester County means anything set on an inadequate base will lift and settle every year as the ground freezes and thaws, and a few winters of that will open joints, tip a wall, and crack a patio. Drainage is the other half of it. Water that cannot get away from a wall builds pressure behind it and pushes it out. Good masonry in this climate is mostly excavation, base, and drainage, with the stone as the visible part.
Yes, and the mortar you use matters more than most homeowners realize. Older Massachusetts masonry was laid with soft lime-based mortar, and it was designed so the mortar was weaker than the stone or brick around it. Repointing that with modern high-cement mortar creates a joint harder than the masonry it sits in, and the stone or brick begins taking the stress instead. The result is spalling and face loss on the material you were trying to protect, and unlike a failed joint, that damage is not reversible. Matching the mortar to the original is the whole job on historic masonry.
Yes, both full masonry fireplaces and stone veneer over an existing firebox or a new insert. A floor-to-ceiling stone surround is one of the more satisfying things to build and one of the harder ones to do well, because the coursing has to read as intentional from across the room while every stone still has to sit properly on the one below it. We self-perform this work rather than subcontracting it, which is the difference between stonework that looks laid and stonework that looks assembled.
Constantly, and it is a large part of why we take on work other remodeling companies will not. Foundations for additions, footings and underpinning for garage conversions, egress openings cut through basement foundation walls, steps and landings, and chimney work during roof and siding projects are all masonry. Because we self-perform it, the same company that assesses your existing foundation is the one that ties the new work into it, so problems get found in week one rather than week six.
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ARM Construction & Management Inc
131 Houghton Road
Princeton, MA 01541
(774) 249-0221
Licensed and insured in Massachusetts. MA CSL #CS-093044 | MA HIC Reg. #153199
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