PRESS

Kevin heads to a family-owned lumber manufacturer in Tewksbury, where the project’s new rift-and-quartered white oak floors are being produced. Sean Herlihy shows Kevin how the flooring is made, starting with green lumber that is air-dried and kiln-dried, then ripped to width and run through a molder to cut the tongue-and-groove edges. Watch now

Ben Pierce, a sixth-generation member of the family who runs the company, said Holt & Bugbee once had a small facility in the West End. Today, its plant is in Tewksbury. He hopes the sign will preserve his family’s legacy in Boston.

“This is a mark that we'll have forever,” Pierce said. “Just to have a physical location in the middle of town that you can go to and point at and say, ‘Hey,  like, we had a place here, we had a presence here,’ is really important.” Read more

In 1825, a man named John Cutter started a Massachusetts company that shipped ice to South America. In return, he would bring back mahogany logs and convert them into highly desired lumber. Now, 200 years later, that tradition of manufacturing high-end, hardwood lumber products continues in Tewksbury. Watch now

Tewksbury, MA– Holt and Bugbee Company, headquartered here, is a distributor of Softwood and hardwood lumber, flooring, custom mouldings, and millwork. The company purchases approximately 25M board feet annually in Pine, Douglas Fir, Cypress, Western Red Cedar, Alaskan Yellow Cedar, poplar, red and white oak, hard and soft maple, walnut, sapele, red grandis, hickory, alder, ash, basswood, birch, cherry, Euro beech, jatoba, African mahogany, teak and ipe (kiln-dried, S4S, Dressed, 4/4 through 12/4). With a history of success dating back to 1825, Holt and Bugbee has withstood many storms, including the COVID pandemic. Read more

Holt & Bugbee, a family-owned business, celebrated its 200th anniversary last year. The enormous advertisement has been painted on the Wakefield building since the 1800s, when the company was still based in Boston.​.. ​The Williams brothers are collaborating with the West End Museum and the Holt & Bugbee Foundation, which is financing the $51,000 project. Read more

While skyscrapers define much of Boston's skyline, a closer look reveals remnants of the city's industrial past, including faded advertisements painted on brick buildings. That's what caught the attention of West End resident Brian Egdahl, who noticed a barely visible hand-painted mural across the alley from his apartment. Read more

In this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, host Jennifer Alger sits down with Ben Pierce, a sixth-generation family member at the Holt & Bugbee Company, one of the oldest hardwood lumber businesses in the United States. At 201 years old, Holt & Bugbee Company has survived recessions, industry shifts, and the rise of synthetic flooring by doing what it’s always done: adapting. Ben shares how the company evolved from importing mahogany from Central America to becoming a premier domestic hardwood wholesaler serving the East Coast from four branches in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York. Listen now