Cushman Design Group

I met with Cushman Design Group. Originally at the peak of COVID at 2020 to discuss a major renovation of my house. My goal was to have an architect really hear my vision for my dream house and then put the pencil to paper and make it happen. To say I am not an artist would be a severe understatement, so I really needed help figuring out and visualizing the end result. To say that I was pleased would be another big-time understatement. Milford Cushman is a wonderful listener. They say you have two ears and one mouth so use them in proportion: He certainly does that. He was able to turn my dream into reality. Milford and Terri (his partner and wife) are also just very nice people…so over the last three years, during this major project, we all developed a great relationship. We have just moved in, and everything that he did -- all of the detail, the angles, the thought process, the ideas, the creativity was beyond my expectations. On top of that, they were also priced very reasonably compared to some of the other firms. I would highly recommend Cushman Design Group to anybody that is thinking of embarking on any housing construction project: On a 1-10 I give them an 11 :) !

My wife and I moved into a 20-year old condominium in Burlington in the summer of 2018 and began planning renovations to turn the unit into our home, reflecting our taste and lifestyle. We were fortunate that one of our new neighbors recommended that we contact Cushman Design Group. The CDG team members were true professionals: responsive and responsible, providing advice and suggestions, offering constructive criticism when necessary, and making a potentially stressful process into quite a bit of fun. We couldn’t recommend them more highly. Joe & Susan Forrester

CDG designed a major renovation of our Vermont vacation house that dramatically expanded the living space by adding a beautiful new living room extension off the renovated dining and kitchen areas. It was a challenging puzzle to solve given the existing design, and resulted in a complete transformation of the house, including a new two car attached garage and all new windows and doors. During the design process, the CDG team of Milford, Terri, and David was very responsive to our desires and concerns and provided invaluable feedback and creativity. Their attention to detail on both the design and the finishes was exemplary and key to the project's success -- we love the result!

We had been working with Chad Forcier on the design of our Stowe vacation home when we unexpectedly found ourselves purchasing our dream historic home in Cranford, NJ. Since we had already established a great relationship with Chad and the Cushman team - we asked if the architectural design of our NJ home could also be done by Chad! We couldn't have been happier with the end result of our total home renovation of a 1912 Dutch Colonial. Chad is simply brilliant and had the skilled ability to translate our vision into the final design blueprint. He builds relationships so he can customize the experience and will see opportunities in spaces that you never realized were possible! Not only is our home architecturally gorgeous inside and out - but it functions perfectly for all the intended uses for our family of five!

Cushman Design Group designed an extensive kitchen remodel and new porch for our home over the past year: the innovative work of the team at CDG resulted in a beautiful, highly unique and incredibly functional outcome! Milford, Mike and Terry listened to our desires and translated them into a design that far surpassed our expectations! They worked with us from the design stage to recommending builders, oversight during the construction phase, right up until the project was competed months later. They were hugely responsive to our questions, concerns and thoughts along the way. No detail was too small. We highly recommend the Cushman Design Group to anyone looking for a highly experienced and phenomenally talented team!

Milford Cushman provided insight, encouragement, an inspired design, and guidance in carrying out a wholesale remodel of a home I wasn't sure was going to work for my husband and me. Milford has a highly-developed aesthetic sensitivity but also makes it his business to identify his clients' most compelling needs and wishes. His absolute commitment to ensuring the success of our project went beyond professional requirements and won our heartfelt appreciation and respect. We are delighted with how our house came out and we highly recommend this company.

What an honor and pleasure it was to work side by side with Milford Cushman, Terri Gregory, Kelley Osgood and the team at CDG in designing and building our home. We savored and enjoyed every minute of the process. Ahh...Milford Cushman, the owner and leader of CDG. The moment we met Milford we knew that this was the man we wanted leading and directing every creative detail of our home. The thought processes that he goes through are engaging to watch and the end result is bar none. Milfords passion for life and everything beautiful in it, combined with his life and design experiences made our home our own. Milford and the CDG team study your wants and needs and don't rest until they are met with a one of a kind result. If you are building in the surrounding Stowe area you will have the added bonus of the unique talents of the local Vermonters that the CDG team engage. From our builder, to the masons, the artistic iron workers and stone engravers that "live in the hills of Old Vermont", they all have a passion and love for their work, Even now, after all the workers and design teams are physically gone from our home, their presence is still alive because they have all put their hearts and souls into every detail into making our home our Homecoming!

The Cushman Design Group created a home for us beyond our expectations through their professional relationship-building, creativity, attention to detail, and follow-through. Everyone in the design group, beginning with Milford Cushman, took care to listen to us, think with us, and create for us our beautifully renovated home. We couldn't be happier about both the process and the outcome.

The Net Zero Ready house depicted on this page is ours. We chose CDG to design it because of their reputation for understanding their clients, yet our experience vastly exceeded our expectation. Milford acted essentially as a psychologist-artist, interviewing us for hours to unearth how we "relate to the built environment." New to the world of design, we had scant understanding of the possibilities. Yet he was able to draw out our desires, and match them with his mastery of design as artistic medium to create spaces that exactly suit us. We absolutely love what he created for us.

Cushman Design Group, in general, and Milford Cushman, specifically, were exceptional to work with from the start of project at the concept development phase through the end of construction. They were sensitive to the site in terms of locating the house and ensuring protection of the mature trees during the design and construction phases. They were responsive to and respectful of our requirements, needs, and constraints. They were open to providing multiple technical and aesthetic solutions, when necessary, which provided us with options from which to choose. They were also open to suggestions from us so that the project felt like a collaboration. They provided assistance in sorting through the pros and cons of different approaches and provided clear feedback when our choices might not be the best for technical or aesthetic reasons. The feedback was provided in a considerate rather than autocratic way and they always accepted our decision as the final decision. The result is a home of clean, modern, harmonious, and elegant details that is a calming, peaceful place to escape from our workday experience. It was a pleasure working with Milford and his team and we plan to work with them on future projects.

Milford and his team are extremely accommodating and professional. They helped me design the tiny house of my dreams, which has been a joy to live in and has been featured in Design New England and other publications. Every time I wake up in the loft, I am grateful for the design that Milford came up with to maximize natural light in my tiny space.

Having collaborated with Cushman Design Group for over 25 years on multiple projects, I'm please to be able to give them the highest rating. Their designs are challenging but the plans and specifications give us the information we need to succeed. One of Milford's strengths is having a realistic approach to budgeting which helps avoid some of the common pitfalls in the design/construction process. They are supportive to our efforts and our workmen and help make the process enjoyable.