Interstate + Lakeland Lumber

CUSTOM-MADE CUSTOMER DRIVEN

THE STORY OF INTERSTATE + LAKELAND LUMBER

CUSTOM-MADE, CUSTOMER DRIVEN

Author

Stacy Moser

Project Manager

Ben Kahan

Bookhouse Group, Inc.

Editorial Director

Rob Levin

Project Management

Renée Peyton Design

Rick Korab

Foreword

XIII

CHAPTER ONE The Wood Carver’s Dream

1922–1974

1

CHAPTER TWO Expanding the Legacy

1975–2019

11

CHAPTER THREE Anticipating the Future

2019 and Beyond

31

A hundred years. An entire century. It’s hard to fully take in just the enormity of that much time. To think that my grandfather Leon started Interstate Lumber & Mill Corporation in 1922, and now I’m here, getting to introduce you to the story of what that lumber yard would become.

What inspired my grandfather to make that leap and start what is now Interstate + Lakeland Lumber was belief. Belief in the woodworking industry he had dedicated himself to, belief in the local communities he lived in, and belief in the workers who would build this company. Over the decades, I like to think we’ve continued to believe and invest in ourselves and the skills of our team.

Since we were that single lumber yard in Greenwich, we’ve expanded across two states, built millwork facilities for our incredible craftsmen, invested in service-improving technology, and brought to life award-winning Design Centers. And we’ve done it while never forgetting our core value—to provide the amazing builders and homeowners of New York and Connecticut with top-quality building materials and exemplary service.

This business, it’s all about relationships. And IL wouldn’t be what it is without the relationships we’ve fostered with such amazing manufacturers. We like to say that Interstate + Lakeland is what dream homes are made of, but it’s really all of us, working together. Windows, doors, decking, lumber, siding—it’s the innovative and uncompromising products that our partners create that have let us help build our community for the past one hundred years.

To the builders that have trusted us year after year, decade after decade—thank you. Thank you for your trust, your business, and your friendship. This industry we share can have its challenges. We’ve experienced plenty of ups and downs, but we’ve made it through by navigating the tough times together. Some of you are new to working with IL, some of you have relationships with us stretching back generations. No matter what, we appreciate your support in our first century, and look forward to you being a part of our next one hundred years.

So, get ready to turn the page, and learn the century-long story of Interstate + Lakeland Lumber. It’s the story of family; both the Kahan family which stretches from my grandfather all the way to my own children and cousins; and the story of the Interstate + Lakeland family we’re so lucky to have you be a part of.

Sheldon Kahan President & CEO

At the Greenwich location, an Interstate Lumber craftsman applying his trade in the company’s earliest years.

CUSTOM-MADE, CUSTOMER DRIVEN THE STORY OF INTERSTATE + LAKELAND LUMBER

On May 16, 1906, Leon Kahan, just sixteen years old, watched with fascination from the deck of the 550-footlong Noordam as the steamship approached the entrance to New York Harbor. By his side stood his nineteen-year-old brother, Adolf (Harry), and the two young men surveyed the city’s skyline with excitement, contemplating the completion of their weeks-long journey from Jassy, Romania, to this new land of opportunity. n

The Wood Carver’s Dream 1922–1974

The brothers made their way to the port’s immigration official, who recorded in the ship’s manifest “wood carver” as their occupation and noted that they had emigrated to New York to join their mother, Chaia (Clare) Kahan, and older sister, Celia, who’d made the journey before them and had since settled in Brooklyn. The boys’ father, Yakov Joseph (Jacob) Kahan, had recently died in Romania, so Celia’s new husband, Gordon Glauber, agreed to pay for their steerage and reunite the family in America. n Leon’s deft use of a woodworker’s rasp, plane, and chisel quickly earned him employment at various manufacturers in Brooklyn, including a job carving wooden molds for chocolate candies. He was soon hired at the United Chair Frame Company, a move that would affect the trajectory of his lifelong career, as he perfected his trade as a master woodcarver, mentored by other immigrant craftsmen. n Ever ambitious, young Leon enrolled in nighttime English classes to more easily assimilate in America. When the opportunity to purchase the chair factory presented itself, Leon, Glauber, and two other partners, Morris Falkin and Jake Tannenbaum, gathered funds to buy it, making what would become a lucrative investment. By 1918, their new venture’s profits totaled $25,000.

“There’s plenty of business in the building supplies trade, but you must have the energy to get out and get it, instead of waiting for it to come to you.”

—Leon Kahan, President

While serious about his work, Leon was also anxious to start a family and, in 1915, he married Sadie Broide, a fellow Romanian. Two years later, their first child, Beatrice, was born.

Opportunity Calls in Port Chester

In 1920, sensing that the growing communities north of Brooklyn would strengthen the market for lumber and woodworking there, Leon moved his family to East Port Chester, New York, to purchase the Byram Woodworking Company, and he leased the land on which the mill sat. He added a lumberyard on the property and incorporated the business as Interstate Lumber & Mill Corporation in 1922. Leon served as the company’s president, Falkin was vice president, and Glauber was secretary and treasurer. Such was the

partners’ confidence that the woodworking market would sustain them in Port Chester that they later purchased the mill property for $60,000 from its owner, Irving Austin. When they also purchased four adjoining lots from the Greenwich Trust Company, Interstate now had a frontage of two hundred feet on Water Street and the same amount on the Byram River, including a dock.

Instilling Appreciation at a Young Age

Shelly Kahan, now CEO of the company, recalls being six years old and visiting his grandfather, Leon, at the Interstate office: “He was a pretty distinguished guy, always in a jacket and tie. Back then, mouldings were bundled with multicolored strings, so he gave me the job of picking the strings up off the floor. The guy who ran the mill taught me about moulding profiles. From bases, casings, and crowns, I learned them all. Leon would ask me about a profile and, if I passed the test, he would give me thirty-five cents and a cracker. That’s my first recollection of learning the family business.”

Leon and Sadie added to their family with the birth of their son Jack in 1922, daughter Miriam (Mimi) in 1925, and son Herbert (Herb) in 1928. The children participated in the family business from a young age. On Sundays, Leon would bustle the family into the car to make the rounds collecting what his customers owed for lumber purchases— typically $3 to $5 per week each. Leon took time to give back to the community that embraced his business, too, serving as president of the Congregation Kneses Tifereth Israel in Port Chester—a position he held until 1942—and also on the board of directors of the Jewish Center of Port Chester and the town of Rye, among other offices.

Predicting Success

Leon Kahan proved to be an astute businessman, and he recognized that his Port Chester lumberyard, sandwiched between the affluent Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut, was an ideal location to sell building products and services to local homeowners and builders alike. Despite dire forecasts about the state of the economy in the mid-1930s, Kahan

The Noordam, a 550-foot-long steamship, brought Leon Kahn from Romania to New York Harbor in 1906. On the ship’s manifest, his occupation was listed simply as “wood carver.”

The original Interstate Lumber & Mill Corporation storefront in Greenwich, Connecticut, not long after it was incorporated.

Leon Kahan (left) celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the company at a party in 1947. The company had come a long way since its 1922 beginnings.

confidently built his business, accurately predicting upward trends in the lumber industry.

He commissioned an unusually large shipment of lumber in 1937, which traveled by ship from San Francisco to New York through the Panama Canal, unloading at Interstate’s dock in January 1938. Hundreds of onlookers watched the enormous barge approach and the event was chronicled in the newspaper with the headline: “Crew of 25 Unloads Shipment for Interstate Mill; Kahan, Company President, Visions Great Activity During Coming Year.” The article states: “The usual shipment to Port Chester yards was about 250,000 feet, but Mr. Kahan ordered an extra 100,000 feet on the strength of his belief in a building boom.” Leon was later quoted in a 1939 newspaper article about his confidence in the area’s economic strength: “There’s plenty of business in the building supplies trade, but you must have the energy to get out and get it, instead of waiting for it to come to you.”

He was right. Interstate sold nearly four million feet of lumber in 1938 and again in 1939. By 1940, Interstate’s payroll had grown to sixty-two employees, including salespeople, millworkers, and office staff. There were also some subtractions within the company though, as Morris Falkin left to pursue other business opportunities in 1941.

That same year, Leon’s son Jack enlisted in the navy after his freshman year at Northeastern University, to serve during World War II as a gunnery instructor in Hawaii. In 1943, his sister Mimi graduated from Port Chester High School and joined the family business in its accounting department. By that time, Interstate

was proclaimed “one of the largest firms in Westchester County,” according to a local newspaper.

When Jack returned from the military in 1945, he joined Interstate and managed the main office as the vice president, proving to be an effective administrator—he was eventually named president in 1968. Jack married Erna Chazen in 1953, who briefly worked in Interstate’s cabinetry department. Meanwhile, Herb attended North Carolina State University and studied forestry management, joining Interstate as its secretary in 1950. His company duties were interrupted by the Korean War, where Herb served as an army lieutenant before returning to Interstate’s management team.

In the early 1950s, the Glauber family ventured in a different direction, opening their own, separate company—Interstate Building Materials—in White Plains, New York, later becoming Elmsford Lumber. Leon, Jack, and Herb remained with the original company and continued to run Interstate Lumber & Millwork Corporation and all of its locations themselves.

This barge of lumber arriving at the Greenwich yard in 1938 attracted the attention of the local newspaper. It was a signal of confidence from Leon Kahan to the community that the economy was on the rebound.

In 1954, Leon’s eye turned toward expansion again and his aim was to provide each of his children with a lumberyard of their own. To that end, he acquired Lakeland Lumber Company in Shrub Oak, New York, and, instead of rebranding that location, he kept its original name and turned it over to his daughter Beatrice and her husband, Leon Tanny, who ran it together. Dave Milhalchik, now in Interstate’s purchasing department and the company’s longest tenured employee, started with Interstate at that location in 1964. “Bea was quite a gal. She was kind with customers, always willing to help. Her husband was a great guy—very customer-oriented. Working for them was a really good experience.”

Now Leon desired a yard for Herb to manage and so in 1954, he purchased Builders Millwork & Supply Company in Stamford, Connecticut, changing its name to Interstate. Herb managed that yard and oversaw the accounting functions of the entire Interstate business from his office on the site.

All for the Family

Leon passed away in 1968, leaving a flourishing woodworking and lumber business in the Port Chester community. With the foundation he laid, the company would continue to sustain future generations of the Kahan family for decades to come.

A year after his death, Leon’s dream to give a lumberyard property to each of his children was realized when the company officially established a Lakeland Lumber location in Croton Falls, New York, for Mimi’s husband, Norman Golden, to manage.

At the company’s fiftieth anniversary dinner in 1972, held at the swanky White Plains Hotel in Westchester, New York, company employees and family members raised their glasses in a toast to the memory of Leon Kahan—a salute to the inspirational pioneer of Interstate Lumber & Millwork Corporation.

The Greenwich warehouse team in 2022. Top: Bryan Robinson, Bujar Krasniqi, Behar Krasniqi, Sanjay Salmon, Gregg Inesta, Pete Koromvokis, Thomas (Hodgie) Hodges, Emilio Perez, Rashe Campbell. Bottom: Andres Alvez, Luis Velasquez, James Healy, Erick Costa, Erik Dralle (Not Pictured: Ricky Smalls)

The Croton Falls, New York, location was established in 1969 under the old Lakeland Lumber name.

An old tool bench from the 1920s with some of the earliest tools used by the company’s craftsmen.