Rediscovering Antique Heart Pine in a Historic New England Textile Mill

At The Hudson Company, we reclaim heritage wood sustainably. Often that means salvaging it from beautiful places like this, the Draper Mill building in Hopedale, Massachusetts, where past and present meet. Though it’s quiet today, this mill—spanning over one million square feet—was once a major industrial hub that produced textiles on high-speed power looms. The Draper family built the mill complex in the 19th century using the preferred building materials of the era. One element in particular was exactly what we hoped we’d find when we visited: Antique Heart Pine timber. Milled and finished according to our exacting specifications, this wood will enjoy a second life as the fine flooring, paneling, and beams we are known for. Luckily, we knew just where to find it.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE TO SEE OUR ANTIQUE HEART PINE RECLAMATION.

Before And After: Reclaimed White Pine From A Finger Lakes Farmhouse

‘Rippings,’ scraps created during the process of milling Reclaimed White Pine planks at The Hudson Company Mill in Pine Plains, NY.

‘Before’ detail of raw material.

After being milled by The Hudson Co.

Reclaimed & Re-Milled For A Second Life

The photos above and below illustrate just one example of how The Hudson Company works to redirect historic building materials away from the waste stream and then uses our team of skilled craftspeople to re-mill this valuable material so that it can be put to new uses in a wide variety of applications.

White Pine From NY’s Finger Lakes

The planks shown here are antique pine boards salvaged from a historic farmhouse in the Finger Lakes district of NY in 2018. After being transported to The Hudson Company Mill in Pine Plains, NY, the planks were then sorted, graded, and de-nailed by hand before being re-milled.

And while it may have been hard to see the beauty in these old pine planks when they first arrived in Pine Plains, our team of pros has decades of experience in transforming gray, weather-beaten, and antique planks into stunning new floors.

See for yourself in the photos above and below.

Learn More

Explore our full range of quality flooring products.

Learn more about The Hudson Company’s FSC-certified Mill in Pine Plains, NY.

Learn more about our sustainable wood reclamation process.

The Hudson Company team hard at work de-nailing planks by hand.

The tools of the trade.

The end result.

Go Behind The Scenes And Watch The Full Reclamation Process In Action