The Lumbery connects the “buy local” movement to Maine mills

By Amy Paradysz

UNTIL A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, Maine homeowners who wanted locally grown and milled lumber had to coordinate directly with one of the family-owned mills in rural towns like New Gloucester, Liberty, Hodgdon, Bradford or Corinna.

Today, wood from all these mills and more are sold at The Lumbery on Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth. It’s an interesting story how this came to be. Nearly two decades ago, carpenter Mike Friedland started a small part-time handyman business during the hours his daughter was at preschool. That business grew to the point that by 2019 Willard Square Home Repair had 10 employees serving the Greater Portland area.

“Our technicians were spending a lot of time driving to Home Depot and to lumber yards,” Friedland says. “So we decided we needed a bigger space so we could purchase in bulk and store all our caulk, insulation, wood drywall.…”

In December 2019, Willard Square Home Repair got a good deal on a vacant building—a former gas station—on a corner of heavily traveled Ocean House Road in Cape Elizabeth. It was a fixer-upper, but that, after all, is their specialty.

Then, within months, the pandemic hit.

“I didn’t want to send my people into homes, and people didn’t want us going in their homes,” Friedland says. “We thought, if we’re going to have this space to stockpile materials—on this lot with this traffic—why don’t we also sell materials?”

Friedland started looking into where he could buy lumber at wholesale prices. Big-box stores were out. They didn’t have any luck with other local lumber stores either. After looking up “wood mills in Maine,” Friedland stumbled upon Local Wood Works, a nonprofit organization that promotes small family wood mills in Maine and buying local wood.

“Until then, I had assumed that, being in the Pine Tree State, all the pine we were using was from Maine,” Friedland says. “Same with cedar and spruce. But the deeper I dove into research, the more I realized that a good portion comes from Canada, the West Coast and Europe.”

Importing species of wood that already grow in Maine made about much sense to him as importing lobster.

“It’s bonkers,” Friedland says. “But I discovered that there are all these small family wood mills that weren’t represented in retail. And there’s no farmers’ markets for mills. It’s like the whole ‘buy local’ movement passed them by.”

The next step was a road trip to meet with family-owned sawmills, including Maschino & Sons Lumber Co. in New Gloucester, Dewey’s Lumber & Cedar Mill in Liberty, Hopkin’s Sawmill in Hodgdon, Parker Lumber Co. in Bradford, Yoder’s Sawmill in Corinna, and Butler’s Cedar Products in Corinth.

Not only did Friedland talk numbers and confirm that selling Maine-milled wood in a retail store could be a viable business model, he found that the local lumber was higher quality and straighter than what he’d been sourcing from big-box stores. In addition, the mills and landowners harvest their trees sustainably (although they don’t get that officially certified, which they’ve discovered tends to price them out of the market).

“Having a connection to who milled it and where it comes from—to me, that’s powerful,” Friedland says. “It’s good quality, at a good price, you’re supporting a community in Northern Maine. And the carbon footprint is lower than with wood shipped from across the county.”

Friedland’s sister, Jennifer Friedland-Stora (who had been the office manager of Willard Square Home Repair), and one of the lead carpenters, Ryan Holland, joined Frieland as investors. And they launched a second business—The Lumbery—as a retail location for do-it-yourselfers.

“I always come here for my framing wood,” says Bill Gilchrest, who recently stopped by for a couple of A1-rated pine 2x4s (sourced from Maschino & Sons) for a basement renovation project. “I know where it comes from—Maine—and it’s good quality.”

Over the past three years, the Lumbery has provided about $2 million in sales to small wood mills in Maine. “These mills have been able to upgrade their saws and add employees,” Friedland says. “And they have the stability to know that we’re going to order regularly.”

In addition to Maine-milled wood and slabs, The Lumbery stocks other supplies the Willard Square Home Repair team used regularly—tools, hardware, drywall, paint supplies, you name it. Depending on the season, you might also find native shrubs and plants, wood-based gifts, books related to carpentry, a sample Thermory® barrel sauna (The Lumbery does home installations), and an all-wood Grain Surfboard made in York. If you’re looking for local white cedar, you’d be hard-pressed to find it at any other retail outlet.

“It’s taken us three years to really fine-tune what we sell, who we are and who our customer base is,” Friedland says.

With The Lumbery on solid ground, they rebooted Willard Square Home Repair in December 2023—this time cutting the big-box stores out of the equation when it comes to lumber and anything else The Lumbery carries.

“It wasn’t that we sought to become more green-focused,” Friedland says. “But we did, because we became more aware of where products come from, the impacts of use, who gets the money, and whether the product can be recycled or end up as waste.” And, while local lumber isn’t at your area farmers’ market, it now has a retail outlet of its own.

This article appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of Green & Healthy Maine HOMES. Subscribe today!

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