About Us

Copyright 2011 - The Paulownia Barn, LLC - All Rights Reserved

The Paulownia Barn, LLC
405 Hydrick Rd
Swansea, SC 29160

I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON!!

Hi y'all! I'm Rod Mortenson, founder and owner of the Paulownia Barn, LLC. I am not a surfer nor a surfboard builder nor a boat builder (yet) nor a guitar builder-but I have been a woodworker for about 30 years. I love wood and I'm fanatically addicted to Paulownia-especially Paulownia Elongata.

I was first introduced to the incredible lumber produced from the Paulownia Elongata tree in 2006. At the time, I was sole proprietor of a small saw-milling operation that produced various kinds of hardwood and softwood lumber. To say that I was impressed by Paulownia would be a gross understatement-- I WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZED!! I had never seen any wood like it before because there is no other wood like it! Before long, Paulownia was the only lumber I wanted to produce.

In the time since 2006, we have produced tens of thousands of board-feet of Paulownia lumber, several hundred Paulownia alaia blanks and thousands of feet of Paulownia planking and bead and cove strips. We have always harvested our own logs, milled them on our own saw-mill and dried and machined them into lumber in our own millworks shop. Initially, all the lumber was air-dried. However, in the Spring of 2009, we installed the first commercial kiln dedicated to drying domestically produced Paulownia lumber in the US. The increase in our production capacity and improvement in lumber quality has been dramatic.

Despite our small size, we are, as far as I can tell, the largest producer of domestically grown and produced Paulownia in the United States. Yet, we are small enough to be responsive to the individual needs of our customers. While we have a price list for our "standard" products, every order is custom-produced. These days, shipping is expensive and it makes little sense for us to ship lumber in only the usual "box store" sizes only to have it end up as waste on your shop floor-so we quote and ship exactly what you need. In addition to lumber, alaia blanks, planking, bead and cove strips, we also have produced custom orders for everything from wall tiles to airplane wing spars. If you have special needs, we'll do all we can do to help you to meet them.

If you need information on our Paulownia lumber grading standards or pricing information, please e-mail us at info@paulownialumberandsupply.com and we'll gladly send you a grading and pricing list.

If you have questions that haven't been answered, please feel free to call me at (803) 381-8735. I'll be glad to help you. We really DO enjoy helping our customers!

Though the large majority of our sales are internet-based, we love having folks stop by to see our operation. If you are planning to be in central South Carolina and would like to visit with us, please give me a ring and let me know. Our physical address is: