Remodeling boom in D.C. area brings to light rich veins of old-growth lumber

By Amanda Abrams February 6 at 7:30 AM

Its the most prominent thing in the room. The wood table is sturdy and spacious eight feet by three feet built of rustic old lumber with a grain that shines through. The best thing about it? All of its wood came from the Northwest Washington rowhouse where it sits.

Theyre old hand-milled two-by-fours that the house was made out of, says Mike Iacavone, an artist who owns the 1920 house, in the Bloomingdale neighborhood, with his wife, Ali Jost.

When they bought the house, they knew it needed renovations, but they were determined to hold on to some of its old structural timber. Iacavone, 40, built the table using a biscuit joiner and a lot of wood glue with discarded lumber that the couples contractor had set aside for them.

Iacavone and Jost also wound up exposing ceiling joists in the kitchen, giving the room a farmhouse look and showcasing thick, 100-year-old planks. We took out a wall and saw the beams, and they looked great, so I said, Lets not cover these, Iacavone says.

The couple may have simply followed their instincts, but they were spot on. The wood in many of the Districts rowhouses, particularly those built before the 1930s, is high-quality lumber cut from old-growth or even virgin forests that no longer exist in this country. That includes not only the flooring and trim, but also the internal framing wood, such as studs, rafters, and floor and ceiling joists.

Its often the same kind of wood that was used to build barns in rural areas around Washington. But unlike reclaimed barn wood, which became popular more than a decade ago, the value of this wood isnt widely recognized among homeowners and developers. And as the city experiences a remodeling boom, builders say, most of it by far is going into landfills.

The wood [that was milled] at the turn of the century is probably two or three hundred years old, says Andy Bohr, sales manager at Galliher and Huguely, a 100-year-old lumberyard in the District. Its more dense, a little more structurally stable, because these are older-growth trees.

Unlike recently cut lumber, which generally has been grown over 10 to 30 years, the old trees had very tight growth rings, lending the wood strength and hardness even in so-called softwoods such as pine and fir. Much of the framing lumber in District rowhouses is made of those softwoods. The flooring might be finished oak or pine, and doors and details could be American chestnut, a wood made rare by a century of blight.

Max Pollock is materials manager with Details, a firm that deconstructs buildings in Baltimore and the District to salvage their components. He says that although most old rowhouse lumber can be restored to good condition, one type of wood is particularly sought-after: old longleaf pine, also known as heart pine. It has a rich color, nice smell, and the grain is much, much tighter than other softwood species, Pollock says. Thats the holy grail; its what were always looking for.

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Remodeling boom in D.C. area brings to light rich veins of old-growth lumber