The J. Gibson McIlvain lumber company lives up to its industry-wide reputation still today but owes its current status to its pre-Revolutionary-war roots. Beginning over two centuries ago, the McIlvain family has owned and operated one of America’s premier lumber suppliers since before its states were all settled, never mind united.
Just like plantation-grown wood often falls short of the stronger old-growth wood, a time-tested, family-owned enterprise like ours offers rare value for consumers. When Hugh McIlvain established a home-grown business on the outskirts of Philadelphia, he took a risk. That risk would form the seedling of what would become a strong and mighty business that would end up supporting his progeny, even 7 generations later.
Just think of it: For over 100 years of this company’s history, no motor vehicles were available to transport logs or sawn wood products to customers or job sites. Word-of-mouth referrals and face-to-face interactions were key to orders and customer relations, while horse-drawn carriages and, later, steam-powered trains provided transportation for deliveries. Historic American buildings like the White House and Smithsonian were built with McIlvain lumber, as were many bridges that helped people move West. The same qualities that made the company successful when those buildings were erected are still what gives the company continued success today: Premium wood products and attentive quality control and individualized customer service.
Premium Wood Products
The wood products carried by J. Gibson McIlvain Lumber were originally limited to domestic hardwoods and softwoods. Our warehouse near Baltimore in White Marsh, Maryland, became our headquarters, while another warehouse was built in Danielson, Connecticut, as our needs to store inventory grew. Later, the company added an extensive selection of pre-made millwork and imported exotic woods, prompting international partnerships with saw mills across the globe, from Africa to Europe and South America.
Attentive Quality Control
From in-person visits and long-time relationships with saw mills across the country and the world to our standard three inspections before shipping, we’re second-to-none in quality control. We ensure that our sources are legal and environmentally responsible as well as dedicated to producing high-quality wood. We fully review the harvesting and drying processes used and hire independent third-party inspectors to provide a detailed review of every shipment before it’s sent to us. We inspect the shipment, once again, when it reaches Maryland, and then after it has been sawn and stacked, but before we ship it out to customers.
Individualized Customer Service
While technology has expanded our customer base considerably, we’re still dedicated to the same old-fashioned values on which our company—and country—were first built. We provide open communication and detailed information to our customers, along with easy tracking of orders. Whether you visit us in person or contact us over the phone, we can assure you that we’ll do our very best to understand your project needs and deliver the wood products you order, meeting your custom specifications to a “T.”
Having weathered many changes in our world and in our nation, J. Gibson McIlvain Lumber is still standing strong, offering timeless quality and old-fashioned customer service.
The same quality that you’ve come to trust when it comes to hardwoods and millwork from J. Gibson McIlvain Lumber now extends to softwoods, including high-end products such as tongue-and-groove Yellow Cedar and Red Cedar bevel-edge siding. These specialty products are dried, moved, stored, and shipped with the specific needs of softwoods in mind. While you can almost certainly find construction-grade softwoods for framing needs available at your local big box retailer, you just as surely will not find the kind of carefully milled and cautiously handled quality that our premium millwork and other softwood products reflect. We at McIlvain firmly believe that we are the nation’s best choice for hardwoods, plywoods, millwork, and now softwoods, too.
Early in our softwoods extension, we learned the hard way that we would need a different process and even a separate space reserved for softwoods in order to cater to their unique needs. We added a new softwoods dedicated facility in order to accommodate the needs for more careful handling, and now we take steps like the following to ensure that these more easily damaged lumber products make it to your jobsite in pristine condition:
Alaskan Yellow Cedar excels in durability, in part because of its high resistance to damage by termites, fire, rotting, and chemicals. Long used in marine applications, this strong wood species can be used structurally for applications like bridges, while at the same time boasting workability and tight grain patterns that also make it ideal for decorative paneling and cabinetry. With 50-60 annual rings per inch, Yellow Cedar is often used for carvings and other specialty applications.
J. Gibson McIlvain helps craftsman produce fine workmanship by supplying premium raw materials for all kinds of cabinetry and furniture projects. From commercial office interiors and custom built-in designs to antique restoration pieces to modern furnishings, J. Gibson McIlvain has the top-quality materials you need for your next project. Two of the craftsmen we specialize in supplying are cabinet makers and furniture makers.
Instead of sourcing your exotic hardwoods like Mahogany from one supplier and domestic species like Red Oak from another, J. Gibson McIlvain allows you to do one-stop shopping, saving you and your customers time and- just as importantly- money. Even unusual requests for uncommon woods like Iroko or Zebrawood are readily available through us.
For those who need assistance in selecting just the right species for a piece, the experts at J. Gibson McIlvain can help you realize the pros and cons of each prospective option. The style is limited only by your imagination, but the quality and selection is limited by your lumber dealer of choice. With J. Gibson McIlvain, you’ll be locked into the highest echelon of lumber but given a vast array of species from which to choose.
McIlvain lumber helped build this great nation, and the success of the J. Gibson McIlvain Company (
Easily accessible to Baltimore, Maryland, due to new bridges over the Schuykill, the McIlvains’ lumber business continued to grow. Others, however, floundered in the wake of politically prompted trade restrictions. When Thomas Jefferson disallowed exportation of wood, many of McIlvain’s former competitors went bankrupt. In the mean time, McIlvain lumber was being used to build the White House, the Supreme Court, and the many buildings that comprise the Smithsonian.
Beginning in 1960, McIlvain lumber underwent three major developments: