A Cut Above - Koon's Sawmill
Chris Koon knows wood. After a childhood spent exploring the woods near his hometown of Prosperity, serving a few years in the military, and then getting a forestry degree; he began dreaming of opening his own sawmill. He has been working in forestry for over 20 years, building a career procuring and brokering timber, but the idea was still in the back of his mind. Five years ago, he made it happen. With help from a few hardworking employees, he built a business known for its quality, customer service, and ability to fill unique lumber needs. Though big box stores sell a variety of wood, they just can’t do what Koon’s does. While most other sawmills and stores top out at a length of 20 feet for their lumber, the Laurens-based sawmill can cut lumber up to 33 feet long and 60 inches wide, making the business a key source for contractors, DIY-ers, and furniture builders alike.
The lumber business might seem cut-and-dried, but the drying process is not as straightforward as one might think. Koon’s Sawmill can put more than two years of careful work into a piece of wood before it’s ready to be processed into a finished product.
It all starts out with timber, some hand-picked by Koon while he works his day job as a forester and some from other sources, like untreat-ed telephone poles that didn’t quite make the cut. Whether the timber is pine, cedar, or a hard-wood like white oak, walnut, and sycamore, Koon’s can process it to create custom pieces for a variety of projects.
First, the raw pieces of timber are cut, leveled, and then dried in the sawmill yard, sometimes for more than a year. Slab pieces are separated to allow airflow; beams or mantles are laid out and stacked, and time works its magic to bring the moisture content down to around 12-15%. For furniture and fine woodworking, it’s not quite good enough. Any other sawmill might outsource the next step, but not Koon’s. The business invested in its own dry kiln, a piece of equipment nearly the size of a single-car garage, to finish the process in-house. The moisture is brought down to a level that keeps the wood from splitting, warping, or twisting during its lifetime, whether it becomes custom siding for a tiny house, impressively sized columns on the front of a home, or a raw-edge fireplace mantle in the family room. By controlling every step of the process, Koon’s Sawmill has built a reputation that has started to travel.
“We don’t concentrate on trying to do volume,” Koon told me during a tour of the sawmill. “We’re much more concerned with quality than anything else. We get the most business from word of mouth, and I do think that says something.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic, lumber prices soared due to a rise in home improvement projects. Koon kept his prices steady and found himself dealing with a new level of demand for dimensional lumber. While he used to tell folks to go where the prices were lower for standard cuts of wood, Koon kept his prices steady and continued to gain loyal customers. His prices are designed to make an honest living rather than make the most profit off his customers.
Mike Corder, one of Koon’s two employees, summed up the company’s ethics perfectly. “We try to treat people fairly,” he said. “If you ain’t got repeat customers, then you ain’t got a business.”
At this point, the business’s growth is held back only by how much work they can get done in a day with their three man team; labor is the limiting factor. But Koon isn’t worried. He continues to prioritize the caliber of his company’s work and the feedback from his customers above profits, and it’s paying off. His business is rooted in Southern values; do the job, do it well, and deliver what you promise.
John Murphy, a customer whose tactical training facility is ironically named “The Sawmill,” spoke highly of the products he bought to match his reclaimed wood buildings. “We wanted to keep it local,” he said. “Chris knew exactly what we needed and he got it done.”
As the reputation of Koon’s Sawmill continues to travel from homebuilder to contractor to wood-working hobbyist, Koon is looking forward to growing his business and continuing to build a name as the source for local lumber projects both big and small. He plans to create a storefront for the sawmill’s lumber products, where customers can see each type of wood and get a close look at how the aging and drying create the beauty of the final product. Each piece of wood will become a unique showcase of nature’s beauty and the hard work of a small business.
