Highland Hardwoods was founded in the summer of 1986 for the primary purpose of supplying quality kiln dried Northern and Appalachian hardwood lumber to the New England woodworking trade. In the summer of 1987 we leased a facility at an existing lumber yard on Route 125 in Brentwood, NH. This enabled us to establish a quality control program by inspecting all of the lumber we handled. It also made it possible to carry a moderate inventory of hardwoods on hand for quicker response to our customers’ needs.
At that time we began to service some of the smaller “distribution yard” accounts in the area including several of the millwork houses, cabinet shops, custom woodworkers, builder and contractors, etc, who purchased less than full truckload quantities of hardwoods. We also purchased a truck and started making our own lumber deliveries.
Over time we also added a retail division of our company to cater to the growing number of custom woodworkers, builders, contractors, wood carvers, home hobbyists etc., who would visit our facility looking for only a few boards at a time. We built a series of retail lumber bins, designed as a “self-service” retail store. The response was overwhelming and our retail business continued to grow, especially as the economy improved in the mid 1990’s. We decided to offer hardwood plywood as well, because we felt this went hand-in-hand with our existing hardwood lumber sales.
We also introduced a line of strip and plank hardwood flooring to add further diversity to our product mix.
By 1996 we had outgrown our initial location, and subsequently purchased a nine acre parcel of land on Route 125 in Brentwood, NH, approximately one mile north of our existing location, and broke ground in May of 1997. The construction was completed by February of 1998. The new operation consisted of a 60’x200’ retail building; two 60’x175’ lumber storage warehouses; a 80’x135’ building to grade and tally lumber as well as load and unload trucks under cover; plus main office building. The total sq. ft. an estimated 55,000 in all. The buildings are all steel construction with reinforced concrete floors. This gave us the capability of increasing our “on site” inventory of hardwoods to an estimated 1.5MM board feet. We have since paved the entire yard ensuring that all of our lumber and secondary wood products could be handled and stored in a dry, dirt and dust free environment.
Since then we have greatly expanded and improved our ever growing retail division. We continue to add new specialty hardwoods and exotics to our inventory mix. In addition to lumber we carry a modest amount of hardwood plywood and solid hardwood decking. The most noticeable change took place in our hardwood flooring department. We redesigned and expanded our flooring showroom and sales office, making it even more customer friendly than before. We display several very attractive flooring sample racks on all the very best flooring brands available today. The response from our customers has been terrific. We will continue to improve the quality of the products we offer, and serve our customers to the very best of our ability.