Old Winona barn heads to California piece by piece

A project that began as a chicken coop now is a family business that specializes in finding homes for old wood.

An old barn in Winona that was recently torn down will become part of someone’s California dream home, or some other type of building, thanks to Len Mathia of Garfield, and his crew of salvagers.

The owner of the Winona barn requested it be torn down. A California man who sells the wood for homes and remodeling projects bought it, Mathia said.

The 42’x60’ barn had 6x6 beams 24 feet long. The barn was so old that it was held together with pegs instead of nails. It had a hay loft and probably was a horse barn.

“It was likely an animal feed barn for winter,” Mathia said.

The frame was Douglas fir and tamarack and the floor was pine, he said.

It took the crew a couple of weeks to tear down the barn and clean it up. Mathia hauls the wood to California in a gooseneck trailer. He made the 20-hour trip twice, delivering the barn wood near Petaluma, Calif.

According to Heritage Salvage in Petaluma, where the barn wood was shipped, recycled building materials, used lumber and old wood have gone into more than 40 homes, restaurants and bars and commercial buildings around the San Francisco Bay area.

Mathia said the market for this type of wood slowed down for a while.

“But the market is growing again,” he said.

Builders will either leave the wood in its natural state or refurbish it, depending on the project, he said.

Mathia said he hasn’t demolished many barns, perhaps four to five over the almost seven years since he started the business. He has done demolition or restructuring projects all over Whitman and Latah counties.

LM Services Corp - Western Heritage Flooring is a family-owned and operated business. The salvage crew includes Mathia’s two sons, a long-time friend, a son-in-law and his brother.

Mathia said he has seen some of his salvage work as it has been reused, and he said he gets a great deal of satisfaction from seeing old wood that’s been re-used.

“It’s awesome,” he said.

“You never know what people are after,” Mathia said. “It’s an interesting business.”