"Saying one man's trash is another man's treasure may be clichè, but Tommy Whittaker is out to prove to local demolition companies how true it is while putting some of the most endangered treasures the Bluegrass has to offer in people's homes and saving them from the landfill.
Whittaker, with help from his wife Laura, has made a business in the last few years of saving wood from homes, barns and tobacco warehouses slated for demolition and finding a new use for the wood by turning it into furniture, countertops and flooring. As Lexington looks more and more to its inner core for new development, Whittaker looks to convince the people tearing down recently deserted tobacco warehouses and obsolete buildings that it would be worth their while to let him save precious wood from the floors, beams, walls and trusses. While much of it may look tattered and worn now, he can bring it back to life, and in the process save companies from paying to dump tons of reusable material into a landfill and infusing a potential new economy into the area.
In some Western states he's visited, Whittaker said, there are whole companies based on single aspects of his job, be it salvaging, reconditioning wood, refashioning it and selling it. Each element of the process has proven to be a viable business in places like Portland, Ore. With an infrastructure of established companies, Whittaker estimated almost 90 percent of some building materials being dumped in the landfill at a cost of around $25 a ton to the demolisher could be put back into use.
A former tobacco warehouse recently torn down by Superior Demolition on Broadway to make way for the new Shelburne Plaza was home to thousands of square feet of wood that Whittaker can now turn into a unique touch for a customer's home.
Whittaker said he sees his work in the Shelburne Plaza demolition as a foot in the door with Superior and its foreman Woody Preston. "I don't think they're going to quite jump on the whole deconstruction/recycling bandwagon overnight," Whittaker said. "At this point if it's saving them money, I think they'll call me."
And it does save the demolition company money as every ton of wood Whittaker takes away is another ton Preston said his company doesn't have to haul to the dump and pay to bury for ever.
"What you can save in landfill fees generally drives how much you salvage," said Preston, who has been working for Superior for nearly three decades. While saving money on what gets dumped is good for the company's bottom line, some items that are seen as salvageable take too much time and energy away from the job to be worth it, he added.
"People think there's just an absolute fortune in these old bathtubs and sinks, but there's just not," Preston said, citing the amount of care needed in removing them and restoration needed to make them serviceable again. "We used to do a lot of that, but I don't do any of that anymore.
"If it's got a nice staircase in it or something like that, then some of these guys that do these old historic house remodels, I'll call them, let them come out and look at it. And if they're interested, I'll let them get it," Preston said. With a few exceptions, that's where he likes to draw the line. "Flooring and things like that I generally don't fool with (allowing it to be salvaged), unless it's a big ash floor."
Preston and Whittaker said there aren't too many demolition companies around who are willing to have their work slowed for salvage. The potential monetary benefits for the company just make sense in the mind of Whittaker, a former accountant, but Preston has his own ideas for why there aren't many companies like his in the region.
"Some of them don't know (there are people like Whittaker who would salvage so much from a site). The others (don't like) that somebody else would make something or get some value out of what they, themselves, could do something with, so they just won't let them do it," he said.
But fortunately for Whittaker, he's been able to find others on a smaller scale who have been willing to work with him, which in turn lends a story to every piece of furniture or flooring he sells. One of his first furniture items, a kitchen island for sale in his store on the corner of Second and Jefferson, is made from one of his favorite finds, virgin oak that he dated at more than 1,000 years old before it was used to build a house in Campton.
"You know, that stuff doesn't exist any more. There (are) not too many trees on the earth that are still at that age," he said.
Whittaker said because of a woman's willingness for him to pull the wood from her house, he was able to save 2,000 to 3,000 square feet of the virgin oak from the Campton home before it was to be set ablaze in a training exercise by the local fire department. What would have been charred timber in a landfill now rests atop one of his pieces of what could be called brand-new antique furniture.
"A lot of people think you put a new top on this existing base, but pretty much everything is built from scratch," he said about the kitchen island, consisting of mainly ceiling wood from a porch with a pristine piece of the ancient oak on top. Asked if he takes as a compliment that customers think the furniture he built by hand was assembled years ago, he said: "You know, I'm not sure."
Whittaker sees his venture becoming much bigger than it currently is. He's breaking down walls with companies in town that, well, break down walls, and he's been getting calls from all around the region to take wood from outdated and soon to be destroyed barns, factories and warehouses.
"They seem to be falling in my lap now; there's more than I could ever get to in a lifetime," he said. "It's unfortunate because I've talked to some people (about barns they've offered), but by the time I catch up to them three months down the road, they've pushed it over and burned it. That's all too common of a scenario, that people will burn 10,000 feet of lumber just because they want it out of their way."
Even though there is a schedule to stick to and other jobs to move on to, Preston said in many ways it just makes sense for a company like his to allow Whittaker to come in and remove some of what's reusable before it ends up in a landfill.
"We're in the business to demo and tear stuff up and throw it away," he said. "I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but we are interested in the environment of Lexington and the historical value of all that stuff."
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