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http://www.omniture.com --> Sections Home Page Local News AP News Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Readers Photo Gallery Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Readers Choice 2006 Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Our Valley Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend October 12, 2006 Blue Greene, 3, left, and her sister Violet, 7, play inside the entry of Leana and Browne Green�s remodeled home in Los Angeles. The floor is made out of old wood. (Los Angeles Times) A new life for ... Old wood Wood reclaimed from long-abandoned buildings has become a hot commodity for builders eager to give home a unique flavor By Janet Eastman Los Angeles Times COSTA MESA, Calif. — Michael Kuhn can be as beat as a bluetick coonhound after a hunt, but he won't stop. The self-described good ol' boy from Kentucky will wade through boggy hollows in the quest for the perfect abandoned old building, buddy up to demolition teams to recover weathered wood that others plan to junk, and sweet-talk sawmill owners to cut the lumber just the right way — all while scrambling to stay one step ahead of rivals racing for that rare aged chestnut, that richly grained oak, that sun-mellowed longleaf pine. "They'll blindside you if you don't watch out," says Kuhn, cofounder of Pegasus Custom Hardwood in this Orange County city. In an increasingly competitive business, old wood — particularly aged timbers used in the framing, flooring and paneling of structures as varied as antebellum estates to Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks factory in Burbank — is hot property. Though no organization specifically tracks purchases of the wood, suppliers report that sales are growing as much as 50 percent annually. "When we first started doing this a decade ago, it was always a question of, 'Is our next job our last?' It wasn't a proven market," says Dennis Roberts, co-owner of Vintage Timberworks in Temecula. He and his partner sell more than 1 million board feet of old wood a year. Advertisement With the scars and patina that come only with time, old timber has an unmatched rustic beauty and built-in history — "wood that comes with a great story," says veteran salesman Larry Percivalle of EarthSource Forest Products in Oakland. Planks cut decades ago, sometimes by hand, and even landmark trees such as the tornado-damaged hickory, cherry and aromatic cedar salvaged from President Andrew Jackson's former estate in Nashville, Tenn., provide homeowners with tree species that are difficult to find. Reclaimed wood also is touted as eco-friendly because it lessens the amount of waste burned or sent to landfills, and it saves living trees from the saw blade. Old wood is installed in only 1 percent to 3 percent of new and remodeled houses because it can cost three times as much as new wood, says Anita Howard of the Missouri-based National Wood Flooring Association. Reclaimed materials are a small but lucrative business, she says, one that has grown rapidly in the last two years along with the style-conscious searches for new ways to make homes more distinctive. To meet demand, wood manufacturers are even finishing more boards to have an antique appearance. Customers who won't spring for the real deal buy young wood that is distressed by hand with scrapers, chisels, saws, files or torches. "But with manufactured wood, you'll see a pattern after a while," Howard says. "With the old pieces, no two are alike. I saw a floor that was made entirely out of old wine barrels with the label name wood-burned into it. It's really something you can't find anyplace else." During the past five summers, Kuhn, 57, has scouted for wood. This year, he took a six-week road trip up the West Coast, across the Midwest and down into the South searching for office buildings, cotton mills, tobacco farms and abandoned sawmills that might hold old oak or walnut. Guiding his finger across a map of the United States without even looking, he ticks off destinations like a fifth-grader cramming for a geography test. He has driven as many as 1,100 miles a day, greeting secret sources, potential buyers and other links in this supply chain. As demand increases, competition among wood salvagers gets ever more fierce. "If you find a building, no one wants to share anymore," says Jeff Husted, co-owner of Vintage Timberworks. He and co-owner Roberts retired from construction in 1995 and put their energy into finding and selling old wood. Since then, their company has installed used wood in more than 500 houses. "You have to get in at the ground floor to get access to wood. If you don't have access, you're out of business. It's a great tug-of-war for a limited supply," says Husted. Kuhn is more blunt. He says people in his business can be deceptive and devious-- bamboozlers, he says. Ask where he found the antique pine planks displayed in his showroom and he's reluctant to reveal a single detail. "I've worked really hard to find this and prepare it for sale, and I don't want anyone to swoop in now and undercut me. I've seen it happen." Peddlers of reclaimed wood recognize that as big as the U.S. is, only so many centuries-old buildings can be pulled down and raided for materials. Bill Gates' 48,000-square-foot house outside of Seattle sucked up so much reclaimed Douglas fir and cedar in 1991 that suppliers nationwide say they felt squeezed until leftovers from the project — about 750,000 board feet, according to architect Jim Cutler — were put back up for sale. Sometimes homeowners wait for a specific species of wood to be found, then endure the long process of getting it to their door. (Chestnut is among the most rare because the groves have been overharvested.) The landowner must sell the rights, the demolition team must gut the structure from the inside out, and the wood must be stripped of all nails and other metal, then dried, recut and certified to meet building standards. For many people, the lore behind the lumber, whether authenticated or invented, is worth the wait. Kuhn has longleaf pine that he says was pulled from a 19th-century building that Confederate soldiers defended against Union forces. His selling tool: a historical photo showing the building before it was taken down. Kuhn has categorized and named this wood based on its qualities: "Saloon" is rough and pitted, whereas "the Boss's Office" is smooth, with the coveted tight vertical grain. Los Angeles architect Richard Landry, whose clients have included Rod Stewart and Eddie Murphy, frequently uses beat-up barn wood in Old World-style mansions because of its rugged beauty. "You can maintain a simplicity in the design because of the richness of the material," says Landry, who estimates that about half of his residential projects include reclaimed wood, brick, slate or tile. Landry client Leana Greene and her husband, attorney Browne Greene, bought the Tudor-style house built in the 1920s for legendary MGM chief Irving Thalberg and actress Norma Shearer, and considered tearing it down. "It was dark, depressing, with small windows and nothing special about it," Leana Greene says of the house, which was designed by celebrated architect John Byers, erected by off-duty set builders and renovated, sometimes clumsily, over eight decades. Despite its problems, a sense of history tugged on the couple, so they hired Landry to restore the exterior and remodel the interior. The house is now a blend, Landry says, "an English manor with a Swedish accent," a nod to Greene's Stockholm roots. Honey-cream-colored pine is used on the floors, and 80-year-old whitewashed redwood siding is installed on some walls. Hand-chiseled beams stretch above the kitchen. Even sink cabinets are made from wood that might otherwise have become kindling. All of the interior doors once hung in other dwellings. "People looked at us as if we were crazy to want this, and it was expensive to use old things," she says. "But it's expensive to buy something that has been made to look old too, and sometimes that doesn't work and people can spot a fake. Real old wood has a completely different feel. People who visit us think that these pieces have been here since the house was built." Hunting for old and exotic materials is Kuhn's passion. He holds up a ramrod-straight plank of 300-year-old longleaf pine in his hands as if it were a muzzle-loading rifle. "See the growth rings on this?" he asks, aiming the freshly cut end at a showroom visitor. "Eight growth rings per inch is valuable. This has 20. You're not going to find that in any old lumberyard." Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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