Joseph Pozzuoli Architects

We own an oceanfront property in Beverly Beach. We hired JPA Architects (Joseph Pozzuoli) in January, 2024.
In summary, we regret having hired him and fired him today and walked away from the $60,000 we had paid him and lost that money. Working with him and dealing with the confrontations including being ridiculed and blamed for everything, constant delays and false billing wore us out to the point we don’t know if we are going to continue the process and build our dream home.
When we hired JPA, we presented nearly completed schematics and completed renderings. We were very clear that we loved the exterior facade and did not want it changed. Joseph continued to make unwanted and unapproved changes to the facade without disclosing the changes. When we would pick up changes on the renderings, he would argue about changing the design back to the original and blame us for not noticing the changes on the schematic drawings.
At one point when we disapproved of changes JPA had made to the exterior façade, Joseph admitted, “I guess it was just my ego.”
Ego refers to a person’s sense of self or identity. Egotism is a preoccupation with oneself and an inflated sense of one’s own importance, which can stem from low self-esteem, past trauma and a need for validation. Unhealthy ego often results in an inability to function in the workplace. In other words, an unhealthy ego means the service provider is more focused on themselves, to the point of immoral and confrontational behavior towards the client.
After well over a year, JPA submitted the plans to structural and then gave us the renderings. Once again, JPA made changes to the original design without disclosing them. When we were able to identify these changes, which we did not like and did not fit with our design, we insisted JPA return the design to the original one that we had presented at the beginning.
Joseph became angry and tried to get us to keep some of his changes. When we told him no, he said o.k., but I am going to charge you time and materials to change it back, “but it won’t be much”. We did not agree with that but were desperate to get started on the build since it had been well over a year in the process.
Several months later, JPA presented us with a invalid bill for time and material of over $11,000 with Joseph decreeing that he decided to charge time and materials for everything he did after we told him we would not accept his exterior façade changes. It felt like it was retaliatory for not accepting his design changes. He charged us for all the things that should have been covered under the contract like reviewing the window and door schedule (which he had not reviewed previously and had many mistakes). He made up hourly charges that were not valid in the amount of $$3,420. Joseph also decided to charge us for all e-mails, regardless of the length or content. He charged his $285 hourly rate by declaring each e-mail will be billed at 10 minutes ($47.50 per e-mail = $3,700).
Our expectation in hiring an architect is that they work with the homeowner to give input and draw a design the homeowner wants. JPA was defiant and more interested in “putting his mark” on our design (as he stated in an e-mail), rather than meeting our desires.
The main thing we asked Joseph to do on the interior was give input and redesign the master suite. We informed Joseph we were going to hire a kitchen designer and he begged us to let him “give it a shot”. We did and after 4 renditions we still did not have a design we liked for either the kitchen or master suite. We hired an interior designer and space planner and in an hour, he designed the kitchen and master suite and we love the design. Joseph charged us over $9,000 in time and materials for the new kitchen design, which was not reasonable.