News Release

You won’t believe what we’ve discovered:

Around 180 AD, a Cypress tree sprouted in South Louisiana. Over the next 750 years, it grew big and tall, reaching 6’ in diameter. Then, around 930 AD, it fell. Maybe it was a massive hurricane or old age that brought it down; it might have been the shifting Mississippi River, no one knows. It quickly became buried in the soft soil and its massive trunk was preserved. Over the next 1,000+ years, it laid there. No sounds, no sunlight, no air. By all accounts, it was frozen in time. Over the centuries, 35’ of soil eventually covered it, as a thousand years of coastal tides and weather pushed it farther beneath the surface.

In the Fall of 2012, a dredging operation discovered it while digging deep. This Cypress tree, which we named BC-001, was so large that it had to be extracted in two massive sections totaling 32’ long. And then they found another, and then another. In total, 14 buried Cypress trees were found of varying size and age. Some still had bark on them. A find like this is so unusual, it’s beyond “rare”. It’s virtually unprecedented.

The Wood:

The wood from these buried Cypress trees are rich in color, ranging from tan to olive to brown to red to grey. There are gorgeous cathedrals and incredibly tight growth rings that shimmer and seem to glow, attesting to the unusual resting place among mineral-rich soil. Some pieces have burl, some have quilting, some have pecky. Through the process of third-party radiocarbon dating by the worldwide leader, Beta Analytic Labs, we are meticulously photo/video documenting the age of each tree.

We are sawing them into the widest and longest slabs possible, ranging from 10” to 50” wide, 2.25” to 3.25” thick, and up to 25’ long! All slabs will be individually numbered, photographed and listed on our website. They will be kiln dried in our proprietary process over a period of many months. Prices range from $50 to $150 per board foot.

Ancient cypress recovery
Ancient cypress transport
Ancient cypress being milled

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