Customer ReviewsforLewis Landscape Services Inc

From day one until the day Lewis walked off the job site our project was a DISASTER! I will say, after reading this review, if you still decide to choose Lewis, be very wary of the termination for convenience clause in their contract. When things get sideways or don't work, they move to the next task, leaving the previous task unfinished. When they get far enough that they cannot finish, they will send an email and conveniently demobilize. They will then **** you saying they are almost complete only to find out there are a slew of mistakes that become costly, if not impossible, to fix.Before I get too far, I will say the crews they had onsite were hard working and really nice folks.The PM (****) doesn't spend more than **** mins on site when he even shows up. It was clear the workers had no idea what the vision was or what the final product was to look like. I had to constantly watch over and even print the design plan for them multiple times to keep things on track.They quoted 26 days to completion. After 4 months they walked away at what they claimed was 85% complete (which was more like 50-60%).We had some poured concrete walls (which Lewis subbed out) but the attention to the details and dimensions created long term headaches. They miscalculated the walls which resulted in our steps and upper patio not aligning or steps protruding above the concrete which was never the intent. A solution was never found. They cut away wall foundations and cut slab stairs to make them fit in other locations which could affect long term structural integrity. The control joints in the walls were installed at an angle as the concrete sub had to revise the design intent because Lewis wouldn't dig the footings per the desire of their sub (they were told they could do it themselves). We requested this entire portion of wall be replaced. They opted to cut a smaller portion as a test knowing we likely wouldn't approve which now looks completely different and the joint is separating. They walked before it was ever fixed properly. The wall finishes are terrible and inconsistent. They failed to remove skim coating which they ultimately tried to chisel and grind away leaving a terrible result on our feature seating walls. Not to mention the tops of the walls are not consistent or level in most spots. These are all things a PM should oversee to make sure the end product is what the owner is looking for.We have a spillway water feature. The opening they provided didn't work with the fountain. The fountain basin wasn't formed deep enough and the water lines through the concrete did not allow the pre-fabricated basin to sit deep enough. And when we turned on the sprinklers the main water connection blew apart from poor installation. There is also no main shutoff for the water without going to my sprinkler main clear across the property.The paver patio they installed looked terrible. Joints do not align (and some of that is on the mfgr tolerances) but the cut lines were horrible which Lewis could control. Pavers and steps are chipped and damaged and multiple pavers had stains do to improper storage of materials.The sprinklers were supposed to be complete but I had to pay another contractor to find and fix plugs/sprinklers that didn't even work.We had a gas line installed for a fire pit. They didn't pull a permit and no one would touch the work as it had not been inspected. I had to do a pressure test myself and negotiate with the inspector to get approval and a permit.To cap it all off, I'm sure the owner will respond to this review with nothing but excuses. But he wasn't even willing to discuss when I called and emailed him multiple times as the project was deteriorating. They just continued to work and try to get as much money out of us as they could before they conveniently walked away.And as the owner will say, only negative reviews like this are posted. But only the good projects are highlighted in their portfolio. I would not recommend this company.

Well, there are two sides to every story. And we're not going to get into responding to all these allegations. We don't have time or any interest in that.But we well say this: the reason we have a termination clause is for cases exactly like this one. One out of maybe 200 jobs or so we run into a customer who changes their mind constantly, sets expectations after we sign a contract and get into a job that are far beyond what we planned for or agreed to, or who we eventually come to realize is impossible to please. All 3 of those issues were present in this case.We will try and try our best, as we did for a few months at this jobsite, to do what we can to make our customer happy. And often times we can, and we're able to wrap up the job, even despite having an extremely difficult customer.But other times, we eventually reach a point where we, our workers, and our subcontractors are just completely fed up and refuse to continue the job. We gave this client SEVERAL warnings that we were almost getting to that point with him and then he'd calm down and be more reasonable for a day or two, only to come back with more of the same issues a few days later. We got to a point where our concrete contractor finally refused to come back and work with this customer. And 2 of our crews refused to as well. At that point, over 2 months into the job and redoing sections over and over again, we finally gave up and had to use the cancellation clause.It's worth noting that we did a job twice as big as this job for one of his neighbors and things went very smoothly there with that job. Same company, even larger and more challenging job. But with that job we had a client who was reasonable and rational, like we have at 99% of our jobs. So things worked out great and they have a beautiful back yard now.I always tell my project managers and employees, "Listen, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Even companies who are at the top of their industry in quality and customer service, such as *******************, Nordstrom or ********* even have angry customers who will leave them bad reviews. It's going to happen, sometimes. We just need to do our best and when it happens we just move on and focus on the other 99%. That's what happened here, without getting into all the details.

As expected, the blame is placed on an "unreasonable" homeowner. Expecting a job to be done right and look professional is not being unreasonable or difficult. As far as changing scope or expectations, let's compare pictures of what the project looks like now to the rendering that was provided upon signing a contract. Nothing changed! Impossible to please was a result of the lack of project management and oversight. We know for a fact the project down the street was not twice as expensive nor twice as complicated. It merely required a lot more dirt to be removed. Lewis is very proficient at moving dirt.The project management, planning, concrete work, and attention to details on our project was well out of Lewis's wheelhouse and we wish they would have just been upfront about it. The concrete work set the entire job off course but as the general, Lewis should own up to it and not blame the homeowner. And not a single warning was ever given that termination was imminent. I admittedly lost my cool (and I immediately apologized to the superintendent) but 4 months of frustration will get the best of anyone.