By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer

A photograph taken in 1976 shows two generations of Blaisdell Lumber Co. owners with employees. (l-r) Frank “Bud” Ferren Blaisdell is fourth from left, Norma Parker, who recently retired after many years with the lumber company, stands next to him, and next to her is current owner Bruce Blaisdell. Alan Phillips, a 50-year employee, kneels in front (third from the right).

Bruce Blaisdell remembers the glow in the night sky when a fire swept through his father’s lumberyard on Bridge Avenue more than 50 years ago.

"It was Halloween night 1950, and I remember that the sky was lit up by the light of the flames," said Blaisdell of the fire that consumed all but one building at the lumberyard when he was only 5 years old. "There was a red glow in the sky."

Firefighters believed the fire began in the brakes of a train carrying lumber to the yard, explained Blaisdell, the third generation of his family to operate the lumber company.

According to newspaper reports at the time, the fire broke out around 2 a.m. and raged for almost four hours, with flames reaching 40 feet in the air. Firemen from 35 surrounding municipalities helped fight the blaze and evacuated residents of West Front Street. Losses were put at $400,000.

CHRIS KELLY Alan Phillips found day work unloading freight cars at Blaisdell Lumber Co. on Bridge Avenue in 1953 and stayed on for 50 years.

"Nobody was killed, but we lost all our vehicles, all the lumber, moldings and millwork, just the hardware store survived," said Blaisdell of the blaze, which also consumed the neighboring Satter Lumber Co. and several other businesses.

The buildings were rebuilt, but a little more than 50 years after the conflagration, and 90 years after its founding, Blaisdell Lumber Co. is slated to close its doors by summer.

"It’s sad, but it’s time to go on. I wish I could stay on to make 100 years, but business is not that great," said Blaisdell, who explained that competition from big box stores and the high cost of operating a small business plus the fact that land values have risen dramatically all added up to the decision to close the lumberyard.

"The big box stores and the overhead are killing us," he said. "It costs $2,000 to heat the mill for just three months. Health insurance is $65,000 a year for 15 employees and taxes are $60,000. If I had a mortgage I’d never have been able to stay in business."

The lumber company’s waning profitability made an offer to buy the four-acre site fronted by Bridge Avenue, West Front and Monmouth streets, all the more attractive, he said.

Over the next two months, Blaisdell will sell out inventory at prices discounted 50 percent and more. When the sale is done, construction is expected to begin on a $10 million, 350-seat facility for the Red Bank-based Two River Theater Company.

By the fall, Blaisdell said he will look to open a design center in the Red Bank area specializing in the type of custom millwork and design items that are now the core of Blaisdell’s business.

"We deal with a lot of specialty contractors and homeowners from as far off as New York," he said of the niche the business has evolved to fill.

Blaisdell Lumber Co. was founded at its present location in 1913 by Blaisdell’s grandfather, Ferren Frank Blaisdell. The lumberyard was an offshoot of a thriving kindling wood business founded by Ferren’s father and uncles around the turn of the century.

"My grandfather bought about a third of an acre and built the building the storefront is in now," Bruce Blaisdell explained. "He lived upstairs, and the rear part of the hardware store was a mill, and they made cement blocks in the basement.

"It was a very small company at that time. There wasn’t a lot of building, it was mostly farms around here. In fact, my great-grandfather had a dairy in River Plaza."

Blaisdell’s father, Frank "Bud" Ferren Blaisdell, joined the lumber business in 1938 after graduation from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia — the alma mater of all three Blaisdells.

After serving as an ensign in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Bud rejoined the lumber company just as development came to Monmouth County.

"After the war, it really started to boom," Blaisdell explained. "That’s when the business really took off."

Shipments of lumber and cement were delivered on boxcars that arrived via railroad tracks running across the back of the property, he said.

"At this point, the business was mainly a lumberyard supplying home builders and had about 35 employees," he said.

With Ferren semi-retired, Bud oversaw expansion of the company, buying up several properties on Bridge Avenue to expand the bustling lumberyard.

"In those days we had 15-20 drivers," said Blaisdell.

"This place was going all the time," recalled Alan Phillips, who had just finished a tour of duty with the U.S. Army when he showed up at Blaisdell Lumber Co. looking for a day’s work 50 years ago.

"He put me on for the day to unload freight cars of pine," said Phillips, who was hired by Bud Blaisdell in February 1953. "He told me to come back the next day, so I must have done something right," recalled Phillips. "The second day they put me on steady as a delivery driver," said the Shrewsbury native, who earned $52 per week in those days.

"This place was going all the time. Forget about going home at 5 p.m.," Phillips recounted. "We called it flashlight delivery. We’d work all day and go out and unload freight trains at night."

Bud Blaisdell found time to serve as mayor of Middletown from 1954-59 and served as chairman of the board of trustees at Riverview Hospital for 25 years. In 1982, the hospital honored Blaisdell for his lengthy tenure by naming a $41 million addition the Blaisdell Pavilion.

One of three children and Bud’s only son, Bruce grew up around the lumberyard.

"From the time I was about 14 years old, I worked there," recalled Blaisdell. "I would come after school and sweep the floor and pick up screws."

Through his college years at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, Blaisdell worked at the yard on weekends. After a stint as a banker, he tired of the commute to New York and joined his father in running the lumber company.

"I worked side by side with him," said Blaisdell, who gradually assumed more and more of the day-to-day responsibilities.

"By about 1980 I was working very closely with him, and by 1985 I was doing most everything," said Blaisdell, explaining that despite declining health, his father remained involved in operating the lumberyard until his death in 1989 at age 79.

By then, business had slowed considerably, Blaisdell said.

"That’s when the business got tough," he noted. "All the land was gone, and that’s when we shifted to specialty items. That’s what stayed profitable and is how we stayed alive."

In fact, millwork for custom windows, doors, moldings and mantels has been the bulk of Blaisdell Lumber’s business in recent years.

According to Blaisdell, traditional lumberyards are hard pressed to compete with big box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s, which have wooed away homeowners.

"We’ve had good years and bad. It’s been a struggle over the last 15-20 years, Blaisdell acknowledged.

"We’ve had good years and bad. It’s been a struggle over the last 15-20 years, Blaisdell acknowledged.

"It’s absolutely a trend, and not just in New Jersey," he noted, adding that statistics show that 40 percent of the nation’s independently owned lumberyards have closed over the last 15 years due to competition from large chains.

Business, while profitable, had been flat for years when Blaisdell family members accepted an offer to purchase their properties from principals of the Two River Theater Company four years ago, he said.

The sale, which includes the Monmouth Antique Shoppes buildings at Bridge Avenue and West Front Street (but not the building occupied by Danny’s Steakhouse), was held up for 3 1/2 years while the state Department of Environmental Protection investigated soil contamination concerns at the site. The DEP signed off on the site late last year, and the Red Bank-based theater company is expected to break ground for its new facility shortly after Blaisdell closes.

In advance of the closing, several long-time employees retired, but Phillips, who progressed to doing millwork and antique furniture repair, said he’ll be there till the last day.

Over 50 years, Phillips said, he’s worked alongside many yardmen, including locals who took summertime jobs and later went on to become congressmen, bankers, brokers and captains of industry. He has outstayed them all.

"I’m the old-timer now," he observed. "At one time I was the youngest man in the lumberyard, now I’m the oldest."