KCB Boiler Room Podcast

This past May at the Luxury Home Design Summit Steve Siegel had a bit of a “moment.” With about sixty seconds to spare at the mic, he rolled out a description of what he and his company does—structural engineering—in a way that set the room of about 400 designers, builders, architects, and trade partners abuzz. It was great writing and a great delivery, making the work of structural engineering fe...

From his role as both managing partner of New England Home magazine and co-founder of the Luxury Home Design Summit, Adam Japko is a force in Boston’s build-design community. With personal interests like fishing and wine tasting rounding him out, Adam is a genuine one-of-a-kind presence. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to hear him present, you know he’s not only comfortable in front of an audienc...

On June 14th, 2023, we hosted a PRO New England panel in our Boiler Room on why builders should work with interior designers. Meg McSherry, owner and principal designer of Meg McSherry Interiors in Newton, was one of the designers on the panel. Of all the discussions we’ve hosted, this one stuck out as not just unique but also evergreen; builders and designers are from two very different worlds. T...

We all know Kevin loves people who put themselves out there. He won’t pass up a chance to talk with someone who is doing new things and not playing it safe. He also values people doing it the right way, with attention paid to detail and focus on an individual’s strengths. Architect Matthew Arnold has been a familiar face in the homebuilding community. Recently, Kevin had a conversation with him wh...

This is our second episode of a new series where we do a deep dive in things that are "Hard to Make." I served in the Coast Guard. One of my takeaways was the POD or “Plan of the Day.” We’ve implemented this on our job sites, along with our project managers having their own versions. Ops man Nate McBride and I take some time to talk about what this really looks like in real time, scaled...

Architect J.B. Clancy, of ART Architects, holds the record for guest spots on Boiler Room panels. Along with his work on the SUNFLOWER, an historic stick-style Victorian, J.B. shares a love of Jamaica Plain, the neighborhood in Boston that Kevin has called home most of his life. Cue: “The Renaissance of Jamaica Plain,” a panel discussion we put on during Design Week 2022. J.B. debuted “Setting the...

Introducing a series we’re calling “Hard to Make.” This is a story Kevin’s been wanting to tell for decades, the culmination of a lifetime of experiences as a carpenter, woodworker, and general contractor. And so periodically, we’ll drop one of these short episodes into the feed.  Our first episode has to do with the concept of “baseline,” as discussed in Jason Schroeder’s book, The Art of the Bui...

As part of Boston’s Design Week 2022, Kevin Cradock Builders assembled a panel discussion titled, “The Renaissance of Jamaica Plain.” One of the panelists was Josh Muncey, owner of the home called the Paragon, a Kevin Cradock Builders renovation project. Josh shared moments from that experience working with Kevin, along with his thoughts about Jamaica Plain. In addition to being a resident of Jama...

In our first special bonus episode, we have Jim Gauthier to talk about Boston Pride, along with his own coming out story and more. Of course, we also asked for Jim’s Pride mixtape rundown, and Jim did NOT disappoint, including a special cinematic shoutout to The Birdcage.

When you are lucky to know someone professionally for nearly 30 years, a bond gets formed. In the case of Kevin and Jim Gauthier, anyone can see how strong their relationship is when they get together. Their openness and comfort with one another really comes through in this wonderful conversation from the Boiler Room. And just wait until you hear them harmonize! Jim covers a lot of ground in this...

Company culture and how to make it better is a perennial, ever-changing topic in the Boston build-design community. In December of 2024 we assembled a panel of principles—builder, interior designer, and landscape architect, to go deep on the topic of company culture. Tiffany LeBlanc contributed a lot to the discussion, from her position as the founder of Tiffany LeBlanc Design. With Kevin moderati...

Last November Michael Oh, founder and president of TSP Smart Spaces, gave a presentation in the Boiler Room titled, “Beyond AI: Visioning Design & Construction in 2030.” We had Michael back to the Boiler Room to follow up with questions, which we aired last week in Episode 3 of the KCB Boiler Room Podcast.  This week we’re airing his original presentation on AI. If you’re in construction, desi...

Of all the panels we’ve hosted, this one on artificial intelligence and predicting what the future, felt like the one that was most in need of a follow up, especially because the speaker is one of the most down-to-earth while simultaneously brilliant and charming people you’ll ever come across, Michael Oh, founder and president of TSP Smart Spaces .  The three moments in Michael’s presentation tha...

Two years after a panel we hosted about why you should work with interior designers, we invited panelist and interior designer Kristen Rivoli back to the Boiler Room to reminisce, as well as to check in about how things have changed. The three clips we listened to from the original panel:  Kevin’s strong feelings on interior designers (16:02);  Kristen’s ideas on how to find a designer if you’re a...

Anything involving a discussion of our team is worth revisiting, so having an entire 90-minute panel on this subject in a room full of some of the best of the best in the Boston build-design community was an awesome experience worthy of numerous podcast episodes. For the first of this revisiting, we went with fellow builder, Eric Adams, of Adams + Beasley Associates. Winner of the Boston Globe’s “...