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New Construction Meets Historic Homes of Newburyport

By Blake Wilcox, Newburyport.com Correspondent
Owner, and Newburyport native, Blake founded The Joppa Group in 2016, enlisting a team of highly skilled craftsmen that bring specialized expertise and detailed project management to each home renovation project. Blake's background as a real estate developer has strengthened his position as a top residential and commercial builder. Blake brings tremendous experience managing relationships with sub-contractors as well as meeting tight deadlines, and adhering to a strict budget. His relentless determination to deliver exceptional results, is why the Joppa Group is able to exceed customer expectations.
Historic Homes of Newburyport, new construction

At The Joppa Group, we have specialized custom craftsmen to usher Newburyport’s historic homes into the 21st century, combining a blend of interior new construction layouts and designs while protecting and preserving the historic facade and charm of our homes. Redesigning historic homes for today’s uses requires a complex and time tested process of careful planning and intelligent craftsmanship. Open concept layouts and vaulted ceilings are not what post and beam homes were designed for and often are not what they are even capable of structurally without significant repair.

It all starts with a vision of how the space will be used for today’s needs, recognizing limitations of the space and developing clever designs that often blend the character of a historic home into a modern layout.  Our process often demands that we quite literally build a new construction home inside the existing historic home. We do this in such a way, that if you were to remove the original historic structure there would still be a new home standing there. Our goal is always to maintain unique attributes of historic homes, especially if they add to the structural integrity such as chimneys or wooden support beams constructed from ships. Other features that clients frequently want to maintain are built-in china cabinets, fireplaces, elaborate ceiling moldings, mantles, and other class wood carvings.

As an experienced custom home builder, this is the level of care and attention we put into the basic framing. Our true passion comes to life when we wrap the kitchen in custom cabinetry and tile work worthy of a magazine cover.  Our vision transforms into reality everywhere as we layer in thousands of feet of custom trim work through bedrooms, hallways, living rooms, and mudrooms.  The final image is accented by custom lighting and splashes of texture. Whether it’s a bold doorknob made of glass or a glass door entering a custom built pantry, our spaces are meant to pull the dreams from inside your imagination and lay them out for the world to see and experience.

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