Patios, driveways, retaining walls, and shorelines, built by a small crew out of Cokato. We handle the base, the drainage, and the pour, so the work still looks right in ten years.
What we build
Most outdoor projects around here need more than one of these. A patio needs a wall to hold the grade. A lake lot needs the shoreline fixed before the steps go in. We do all of it, so nothing falls between contractors.
Driveways, patios, pool decks, garage slabs, and steps. Broom, stamped, or colored finish, on a compacted base with saw-cut joints.
Paver and flagstone patios, retaining walls, walkways, fire pits, and outdoor kitchens, plus the plantings, mulch, and rock beds that finish the yard.
Boulder walls, riprap shorelines, grading, and erosion control for lake lots and sloped yards. Compact equipment, so the yard survives the job.
Recent work
Every project here is within a short drive of Cokato. Ask us and we will tell you the address, so you can go look at the joints yourself.
Hardscape
A sloped backyard rebuilt with a hand-fitted Chilton flagstone patio, a matching stone fire pit, dry-stacked walls, and steps between the two levels.
Concrete flatwork · Hanover
A long, curved broom-finish concrete driveway poured for a brick home in Hanover, MN, with clean radius edges and evenly spaced control joints.
Shoreline and drainage · Lake Sylvia
A slumping bank on Lake Sylvia stabilized with fieldstone riprap at the waterline, a boulder retaining wall up the slope, and a seeded hillside.
Concrete flatwork
A broom-finish concrete pool deck wrapped in a paver soldier-course border, with a paver sitting area carried toward a dark-sided two-story home.
Want to see one of these in person before you hire us? Call and ask for an address. Every job on this page is within a short drive of Cokato.
Call (612) 875-9858How it works
Four steps, in this order, every time. Most people hear back the same day and have a written number within a week of the site visit.
We call back the same business day and ask a few questions: what you want built, roughly how big, and what is there now. Photos help.
One of us comes out, looks at the grade, the soil, and where the water goes, and measures. That visit is free and there is no design fee.
Line items, not a lump sum, so you can see what you are paying for. If something on your lot is going to be a problem, it is in writing before you commit.
We give you a start date and show up on it. Base, forms, pour, finish, and we haul off what we dug out. You get our number if anything ever moves.
Before the pour
Almost every cracked, heaved, or sunken slab we get called to replace failed for one of four reasons, and none of them happened on the surface. Here is what we get right first.
We dig out the topsoil and compact a gravel base before anything else. Most failed slabs failed here, months before the first crack showed.
Wright County ground freezes deep. Walls, footings, and steps are built for frost heave, not for a nice day in June.
Every surface is pitched to shed water away from foundations, and we add drain tile where the yard needs it. Standing water is what breaks concrete in winter.
Concrete is going to crack. We saw-cut control joints at the right spacing so it cracks where we tell it to, in a straight line you will never notice.
Where we work
We are in Cokato, on the Wright and Meeker County line. Most of our work is in the towns on this map, and we will go further for the right project. Every stone is a town, with the drive from our shop.
Not on the map? See the full service area or call. We take work out to Monticello, Glencoe, Rockford, and the west metro when the job fits the schedule.
About us
We started Josephson Concrete and Hardscapes on a simple idea: outdoor work should last and it should look right. We earned our first jobs with clean work and clear communication, and that is still how we get most of them, one neighbor telling another.
We are a small crew, which means the person you talk to at the estimate is on the job. No sales rep, no subcontractor you have never met. If something is not going to work on your lot, we will say so before you spend money on it.
We treat every job like it is for our own family. That is not a slogan. It is the easiest way we know to decide how to do something.
Questions we get on the first call
If yours is not here, call. We would rather answer it on the phone than have you guess.
It depends on the size, the thickness, whether an old driveway has to come out, and how hard it is to get a truck to the pour. We do not quote off a per-foot number because that number is always wrong for somebody. We come out, measure, and give you a real written price. The visit is free.
Concrete season here runs roughly mid-April through October, depending on when the ground thaws and when it freezes. We do not pour on frozen ground. Retaining walls, boulder work, and shoreline jobs can run later into the fall, and that is often the best time to book them.
Sometimes. A driveway that meets a public road usually needs an approach permit from the city or township, and retaining walls over about four feet often need an engineered design. It varies by town in Wright and Meeker County. We will tell you what applies to your lot and handle the paperwork we can.
All concrete cracks eventually. The job is to control where. We compact the base, pour at the right thickness, and saw-cut control joints at the right spacing so the crack happens inside a joint where you will never see it. Random cracks come from a bad base, thin slabs, or missing joints, and we do not do any of those.
Our home turf is about 30 minutes from Cokato in any direction: Dassel, Howard Lake, Annandale, Litchfield, Hutchinson, Buffalo, Delano, Watertown, and the towns in between. We will go further for the right project. Call and ask.
Both. Poured and stamped concrete, paver patios and walkways, Chilton and other flagstone, boulder and block retaining walls, fire pits, and outdoor kitchens. Most yards end up with a mix, and doing all of it with one crew is the point.
Free estimate
We will come out, look at the grade and the soil, and give you a real number. No pressure and no design fee. If we are not the right fit for the job, we will tell you who is.
