Home additions, kitchens, bathrooms, basements, roofing, and siding for Montclair’s 1880s to 1930s homes. Licensed, EPA Lead-Safe Certified, and four miles from our shop in Belleville.
Temprano Construction is a licensed and insured New Jersey general contractor serving Montclair homeowners with home additions, kitchen and bathroom remodeling, basement finishing, roofing, and siding. Ray Temprano leads every project on-site, from the first walk-through to the final inspection, and our shop is four miles away in Belleville.
Most of Montclair was built between the 1880s and the 1930s. Queen Annes and Shingle-style houses on the older blocks, Foursquares and Colonial Revivals filling in after, Tudors climbing the hill toward Upper Mountain Avenue. Census estimates put roughly six in ten Montclair homes at pre-1940. They’re the reason people move here, and the reason renovating here is different from renovating a 1985 colonial.
Planning an addition? Start with Home Additions in Montclair, NJ. Statewide overview: home additions in New Jersey.
Before the drawings
Two layers of rules come with a house this age.
The town reviews the outside. If your home sits in one of Montclair’s four local landmark districts (Town Center, Upper Montclair, Pine Street, or Watchung Plaza) or is an individually designated landmark, exterior work visible from the street needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission before the building permit moves. That includes additions, porches, windows, and siding changes. The Commission hears applications once a month, on the fourth Thursday, so it’s a step you plan around, not one you discover after the architect is paid.
The federal government governs the inside. Any house built before 1978 is presumed to have lead paint, and in Montclair that’s nearly all of them. Opening a wall, pulling trim, or replacing windows triggers the EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule: containment, specific work practices, cleanup verification, and paperwork you should receive before the first day. Temprano is an EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm (certified for purposes of Section 402 of TSCA), and Ray holds the individual Lead Renovator certification. Those aren’t extras on our jobs in Montclair. They’re the baseline. Background: lead-safe renovation in NJ.
A contractor who doesn’t know both layers will cost you time on the first and put your family at risk on the second.
Montclair lots tend to be deep and narrow, and a lot of them slope. That shapes what’s possible and what’s smart. Every project starts with a walk-through and a look at the zoning table and landmark-district map.
Rear additions are the natural move on a deep lot, and they’re what most Montclair homeowners ask us about first: a family room and mudroom off the kitchen, a primary suite over a new first-floor footprint, a two-story rear wing that matches the roofline of a Foursquare. Building up is the alternative when a setback stops the rear. On a landmark-district house we bring the drawings to the Commission early. Home additions in Montclair.
Kitchens in 1900s Montclair houses were designed as service rooms: small, closed off, at the back of the house. Opening one up usually means removing a bearing wall, so the job starts with structure: an engineered beam, a load path down to a 120-year-old foundation, and a plan for what’s inside the wall. We handle the structural work and the finish work under one contract. Kitchen remodeling.
Second-floor baths in these houses are often the original footprint with 1960s fixtures. We rebuild them from the subfloor up: layout, plumbing, tile, ventilation, and the lead-safe containment that a pre-1978 demo requires. Bathroom remodeling.
Montclair basements come with stone or early poured foundations and, on the hill, real moisture history. We deal with water before we frame a wall. Then egress, insulation, electrical, and a ceiling-height plan that works with the mechanicals you already have. Basement remodeling.
Slate, cedar, and asphalt roofs all live on Montclair streets, often on the same block. We handle tear-offs and replacements, flashing, ventilation, and storm repairs, and we’ll tell you whether your roof is a Commission conversation before you pick a material. Roofing.
Siding on a landmark-district house is a Commission conversation before it’s a material choice. Outside the districts, fiber cement and engineered wood are the usual answers on a house with real trim profiles to respect. We’ll tell you which situation you’re in before you pick a sample. Siding.
Three things, in our experience.
The structure is honest but undocumented. No plans exist. Framing is often full-dimension lumber, sometimes balloon-framed, occasionally sistered by a previous owner in a way nobody wrote down. We open small exploratory sections before we price structural work, so the proposal reflects the house rather than a guess.
Matching matters more than it does on a newer house. A rear addition on a Shingle-style house lives or dies on the eave depth, the window proportions, and the trim profile. We build additions that a neighbor can’t date.
Contingency is real money, not a formality. We carry 10 to 15 percent on older homes because the odds of finding something behind the plaster are high. When we find it, you hear about it that day, with a number and a recommendation, before we touch it.
Build or move
Montclair’s median home sale price passed $1 million in 2026, and the houses people want here (the ones with the porch, the stained glass, the third floor) don’t come on the market often and don’t stay long. Trading up inside the township means paying a premium for a house that likely needs the same kitchen and bath work you were trying to avoid.
Building on the house you already own keeps the block, the train line, and the school. Additions in Northern NJ generally run $200 to $400 per square foot in construction cost; older-house complexity and historic-district exterior detailing tend to push Montclair projects toward the upper half of that range. Our home addition cost guide breaks down what moves the number, and our addition vs. moving comparison lays the two paths side by side.
Why Montclair homeowners work with Temprano
On a 1900s house the work has to disappear into the original: eave depth, window proportions, trim profiles, plaster returns. Ray is second-generation construction with 40+ years of combined family experience in Northern New Jersey.
You hear about scope, schedule, and cost from Ray directly, before anything changes. Not from a rotating project manager after the fact.
Structure, materials, and workmanship built to the standard a Montclair home is worth. Satisfaction at punch list is the floor, not the goal.
NJ Home Improvement Contractor #13VH11462700. EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm NAT-F321755-1 and Ray’s individual Lead Renovator certification, both valid through 2031 (for purposes of Section 402 of TSCA). 5.0 stars on Google across 20+ project locations in 6+ counties.
Client reviews
“It was great working with such a good construction company. Ray and his team made sure that we had all of our tile, paint, fixtures placed the way we wanted to! We are very happy with our new bathroom!”Linda Lurslurchachai
“Had Temprano Construction remodel my parents’ bathroom and did a great job! Very professional and clean while working. Would recommend to others.”Chris
“Ray and his team did great work on building our deck. He’s fair, honest, thorough, and was easy to work with. We’re very pleased with the work he did and looking forward to enjoying our new deck.”Jeffrey Ehrlich
If your house is in one of the four local landmark districts (Town Center, Upper Montclair, Pine Street, Watchung Plaza) or is an individually designated landmark, exterior work visible from the street needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before the building permit is issued. Outside those districts, a standard construction permit applies. We check your status on the first visit. Details: Montclair Historic Preservation Commission.
Three things: it almost certainly has lead paint, so EPA lead-safe practices apply to any demolition; it has no existing plans, so structural work starts with exploratory openings; and matching the original details (trim, eaves, window proportions) is what makes an addition look right. We build the contingency and the containment into the proposal up front.
Often yes. Montclair lots are typically deep, which favors rear additions, but side-yard setbacks and lot-coverage limits vary by zone. We pull the zoning table before design so you know the buildable envelope before the architect starts. See home additions in Montclair.
Northern NJ additions generally run $200 to $400 per square foot in construction cost. Older-house structure and historic-district exterior detailing tend to land Montclair projects in the upper half of that range. Design fees and a 10 to 15 percent contingency sit on top. Full breakdown: NJ home addition cost guide.
Yes. Temprano handles the construction permit package through the Township of Montclair under New Jersey’s Uniform Construction Code, plus zoning review and, where it applies, the Certificate of Appropriateness application. It isn’t a separate charge. See also: NJ home addition permits.
Yes. Ray Temprano leads every project personally, on-site, from the first walk-through through final inspection. You’ll have his number, and he’ll answer it. For how to vet any general contractor, see how to hire a general contractor in Northern New Jersey.
Our shop is in Belleville, four miles from Watchung Plaza. From Montclair we regularly work in:
If you’re within an hour of Belleville, we can reach you. See all of our service areas.
Request a free estimate. We’ll walk the house, check your landmark-district status and zoning, and tell you honestly what the project should include before anyone picks up a tool.