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NEW LINE — Arborwall Solid Cedar Homes provide a customer with all of the comfort features of a log cabin home, in a more traditional package.
OAKFIELD — From a satellite office in Kennebunk, Gabe Gordon is marketing a new line of homes from Katahdin Forest Products called Arborwall Solid Cedar Homes.
Gordon, a 2000 graduate of Southern Aroostook Community School, went to St. Joseph’s College majored in marketing/adverstising. After his college graduation, Gordon worked for three-and-a-half years in Portland at a marketing agency developing marketing events and sports sponsorship programs for Fortune 1000 clients.
In 2007, Gordon’s father, David, called and asked his son to help market Katahdin Cedar Log Homes where he remains the Director of Marketing for Katahdin Cedar Log Homes.
Arborwall Solid Cedar Homes and sister company Katahdin Cedar Log Homes are subsidiaries of parent company Katahdin Forest Products, based in Oakfield.
Gordon noted the move into the new product line has been an active progression.
“We’ve had this style of log home for essentially 20 years,” he said. “But, when we sold a house in downeast Maine, the way the owner styled his home — clapboard siding and whitewashed interior — opened our eyes. Our cedar home has the construction of a log home, with the benefits of being more energy efficient and it does not look like a log home. It has all the benefits of a log home, but it can be a contemporary or modern design. We can be more flexible in its design.”
For homeowners looking for solid construction, warm open interiors and fresh exteriors, Arborwall Solid Cedar Homes has a new concept worth exploring.
“The secret to Arborwall’s strength and energy-saving design is the construction of the exterior shell from whole Northern white cedar logs,” said Gordon. “We use more than 40 years of experience manufacturing fine traditional log homes and apply those techniques to a home that carries all the benefits of whole log walls. The difference lies with the contemporary façade of clapboard or shiplap profile that transforms the exterior of the log-constructed home.”
The result is a modern feel with genuine rustic features that blend together in a pleasing harmony.
The development of the new Arborwall concept evolved from the realization that while the quality of log home construction had grown by leaps and bounds at Katahdin Cedar Log Homes, not everyone wanted a rustic-looking log home.
“With our advanced milling technology and flexible interiors, we could reconfigure the look and still deliver the quality and benefits of cedar log construction,” Gordon said. “The result is a beautiful, efficient, log-constructed home that fits in many different settings.”
Each Arborwall home is designed based on the customer’s own ideas, and basic styles are available as a starting point.
“We are happy to work with a third-party architect or designer to ensure sound translation into the whole log format,” Gordon added. The design is versatile and can incorporate numerous elements, both locally sourced and manufactured, to complete the homeowner’s vision.”
Arborwall uses state-of-the-art technology to mill each 6- x 6-inch log precisely to fit together like fine furniture in the exterior walls. The cedar timbers are naturally air-dried, then kiln finished to an optimal 12 percent average moisture content, taking advantage of one of the driest wood species in construction. This time-tested technique of interlocking, stacked logs creates an unmatched strength throughout the structure. The strength of solid wood construction also translates into a uniquely snug and comfortable home though continuous insulation around the entire exterior of the home.
Arborwall’s Northern White Cedar provides the highest insulation R-value among species used for construction: 1.4-R per inch.
“To that natural insulation, we apply an additional continuous insulation system on the interior to boost energy efficiency,” said Gordon. Traditional stick frame homes use insulation in between the vertical studs, but those vertical studs form “thermal bridges” every 14-16 inches that leach energy and heat out the exterior walls. With its natural protective oils, Northern white cedar also offers the opportunity to maintain a cleaner environment, requiring no additional volatile chemical treatments for insects, mildew or rot.
Cedar is one of the most sustainable harvested wood species in North America.
“Our parent company, Katahdin Forest Products, has maintained green practices for nearly 40 years, including recycling wood waste in its biomass boiler to heat the mills and fuel the drying kiln,” said Gordon.
Since this is a new brand, Arborwall Solid Cedar Homes will be offering any Aroostook County residence who is building in The County a 15 percent discount.
“It’s our way of saying thank you to the local community that have supported us for so long,” added Gordon.
For more information on Arborwall Solid Cedar Homes call 1-800-261-7254.
