Wood
It almost could be a country song. Combining wood, weddings and whiskey together sounds as much like a poetic story line as much as it works as a moneymaker in the marketplace. A handful of years ago a few Lexington owners were able to creatively combine three different businesses that now work so sweetly off of one another that you would have thought it was intentional from the start.
Nathan Brown began looking for sunken logs in South America over ten years ago. He then built a house using old discarded barnwood as accent pieces. This led to Nathan buying a trailer and gathering repurposed wood from farms all over Kentucky and delivering the raw timbers to a mill and then sending orders to customers. Eventually this adventure became a company known as Old World Timber.
Whiskey
Nathan Brown and Sam Rock have been friends since their graduate school days. This friendship has led them to start multiple enterprises through the years. And in 2013 after having had enough of seeing all the good craft whiskey distilleries setting up in places like Gatlinburg, TN, they decided it was time to bring craft bourbon to Lexington, Ky. This dream eventually took the name Bluegrass Distillers and is now one of the premier stops along the Craft Bourbon Distillery tours in America’s only original bourbon road. Any guess what lines the interior design of the downtown distillery? You guessed it, Old World Timber wood accent pieces.
Wedding
One day in the middle of all these other activities Nathan sold his barnwood accented house to one of his now best friends Ben Franzini, a spacecraft programer. Their friendship eventually blossomed into a dream to bring a new event space to downtown Lexington, Ky. Their idea for this event and wedding space was to design it with the reclaimed wood products that Old World Timber was producing and provide Bluegrass Distillers bourbon as gift ideas for wedding favors. And what better name to give it than The Heartwood.
After these many years Old World Timber is now a global wood enterprise, Bluegrass Distillers is moving to a 150 year old refurbished mansion on a 100 acres lot in Midway, Ky, and the event space, The Heartwood, has become a main attraction for weddings, events and conferences even during a pandemic year. The historic wood, coupled with artisan bourbon joining forces at an event space for thousands to enjoy makes quite the framework for a hit country song, don’t you think?
