Business owner finds market in dismantled barns

The Mountaineer, August 24, 2005
by JEREMIAH YOUNG

For those like Waynesville business owner Zachary Guy, old barns are more than just a visual delight.

Guy is the owner of Appalachian Antique Hardwoods of Waynesville —the Southeast’s largest and most respected specialist in antique timber.

The timber is reclaimed both locally and from all points east of the Mississippi.

Guy is a self-taught expert on vintage barns and the different species of wood they contain. He began tearing down old structures in Western North Carolina while he was still in high school and since 1996 has turned his passion and enthusiasm into a very successful company.

Appalachian Antique Hardwoods has been a wood source for clients such as Tom Hanks, Liv Tyler, Rusty Wallace and Clint Black.

On average, Guy and his team take down two structures a week — about half of which are local — to sell across the United States and in several foreign countries.

Since it is increasingly rare to find buildings made completely from chestnut, one of the rarest and most valuable types of timber around, he uses horses to dredge virgin chestnut logs from creek beds. He has even used helicopters to access remote sites.

His company currently owns about 200 dismantled barns, cabins, mills and factories to supply timber as needed.

Guy has the coveted endorsement of The American Chestnut Foundation. When visitors to the foundation’s website click on a link to purchase reclaimed chestnut they see a short biography and information about Appalachian Antique Hardwoods’ products.

For each purchase made through the link, Guy donates 15 percent to fund research in the hopes that American chestnuts may once again flourish.

“Maybe my grandkids will get to see big chestnut trees,” he said. “Until then, the only way to get chestnut wood is to reclaim it.”

One of the most unique services Appalachian Antique Hardwoods performs for its clients is to provide a portfolio and framed print at the end of every job containing any history, pictures and stories about the vintage architecture used in each project. In the portfolios, the buildings are shown both in their original state and in the process of being taken down to procure the wood. “The stories are what people are interested in,” Guy siad, “not just the look.”

Customers want a conversation piece, a sense of place and to feel like they are doing something to celebrate and preserve a rich pioneer and agricultural legacy. Many people even want a hand in taking down the structures reclaimed for their particular job.

Appalachian Antique Hardwoods consistently has clients who already have a neglected building somewhere on their property and want to make use of that material in their present homes — people after Guy’s own heart.

Taking down a barn a group of men put up more than 100 years ago gives him the “cold chills,” he said. “You can see their axe marks and where their hammers have hit the wood.”

For Guy and most of his clients, the point is not simply to have what others do not but to somehow keep the past alive. Customers also want to find the best and most intriguing materials for their homes.

Guy said reclaimed wood is of a much higher quality, far more dimensionally stable and rapidly adapts to changes in temperature and humidity because it has been exposed to years of wind, sleet, snow, rain and hail. Because the pores of vintage timbers are fully open, they can be soaked, yet will dry out in just a couple of days.

New lumber, on the other hand, will retain moisture and may twist or warp. “It’s not rocket science to go out and tear down a barn,” Guy explains, “but it is to tear down a barn and extract only the highest quality lumber that will make the best wide-plank flooring, kitchen cabinetry, custom moldings and hand-made doors.

You really have to know what you’re looking for and have to hand-select only the best boards.” The rarity of chestnut means it will cost more than other reclaimed wood such as vintage oak, pine or maple flooring, for example.

But regardless of the reclaimed wood used, each application of old lumber somehow manages to produce results that are interesting to look at and practical, Guy said.

Those who use antique woods know that every timber, every cut, every surface tells a story. They speak to a certain continuity between the past and present and provide an opportunity to make every day a celebration of a nearly-forgotten way of life.

This region’s history is in many ways tied up with the process of finding what is most useful and not wasting it. Recycling old wood is one way to continue that history.