Buffalo business aims to recover value of wood from old barns
High-end builders like old wood for beams and floors
One of Buffalo’s up-and-coming, eco-friendly businesses is tucked away in a blue and silver warehouse in Cheektowaga that’s full of wood beams and debris.
Buffalo Barn Board, started in September, takes apart dilapidated barns and transforms them into high-end floors and conversation pieces. The company is the brainchild of Brooks Anderson, a former investment banker who got sick of wearing a tie and decided to find another avenue toward profits.
Anderson said he wanted to pick “a project or process simple enough to understand but laborious enough that not everyone wants to do it.”
The company’s concept is similar to that of nonprofit Buffalo ReUse, started in spring 2006, that takes apart old houses and factories in Buffalo. The organization is focused on job training and taking down abandoned local buildings, but rarely takes down barns.
“I’m psyched that [Buffalo Barn Board is] around because it’s just more buildings that are being reused,” said Buffalo ReUse executive director, Michael Gainer.
For Buffalo Barn Board, the job begins with a barn at least 100 years old and is falling apart. Anderson strikes a deal with the farmer, agreeing to clear the site with the help of subcontractors from Depew-based Empire Building and Diagnostics.
Just to take down the barn can cost from $10,000 to $50,000 depending on the size and the presence of asbestos. Yet Anderson said gravity does most of the work since old barns are held up with little more than wood pegs and high-quality craftsmanship.
The whole idea is to preserve the wood and the history that would otherwise be lost.
“It’s going to go to a landfill. It’s going to be burned on site. And there’s 150 years more in this wood,” he said.
Once the wood is brought to the warehouse, it is hand-scrubbed with boric acid and sanded. Contractors, brokers and interior designers call looking for a wood beam for a ski lodge or for a living room floor. On occasion, Anderson sells the wood wholesale to another company.
“My market is people who can pay for the story behind it,” Anderson said.
With each purchase, the customer receives a picture of the barn and a few paragraphs explaining the wood’s history.
Buffalo Barn Board will be a part of a project to build a village of about 30 homes, 15 to 20 shops, an amphitheater and microbrewery in Bemus Point with Lakewood-based Sivak Stone Masonry.
The ambitious plan to construct a village of unique stonework and reused wood and to run the village on mostly solar and wind power will begin next year and take over a decade, owner Jason Sivak said.
Every two months, subcontractors take down one barn, Anderson said, but the pace will speed up as winter approaches. The deconstruction of barns will stop in November. By then, the warehouse will be jam-packed with wood to tide the company over until April, he said.
But for Anderson, the ultimate goal is hire employees and branch out from the current one-man show. He plans to hire two full time employees within the next month.
In August of 2009, he plans to move to a new location. He imagines a “freestanding, multi- acre lot” with high visibility, so that potential customers will be able to watch the transformation take place. He is also looking into running the new building with windmills, wood-fired boilers and biodiesel.
“I intend to become a fully green company with as little environmental impact as possible,” he said. Anderson said he is “going green” mostly to minimize costs.
Gainer, of Buffalo ReUse, said he sees the future business model changing drastically to eliminate transportation and operational costs. Companies and customers are beginning to turn green for cost purposes or personal preference, he said.
“Everybody is going to have their own motivations for buying the material,” he said. “We have people come in the store who are artists looking for something unique, we have people with a low budget, and others that are concerned about the environment.”
In the next five years, Anderson looks have 20 to 25 employees. He said he wants to tap into the skills of Buffalo State students and start an internship program.
Anderson also aims to expand Buffalo Barn Board’s market into more cosmopolitan areas, providing customers with products like unique doorways and sleek benches for a Manhattan apartment.
“I want to make this old, dusty kind of material more contemporary,” he said, describing the flavor as “more ‘Architectural Digest’ than ‘Country Living.’”
Prices vary widely based on wood quality and amount. Wood flooring for example can cost anywhere from $5 to $23 for each square foot. A 30 foot wood beam would be priced around $10,000.
Anderson said he expects demand for the barn wood to continue to grow.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any slowing down,” he said.
