Jewett Farms Lands in Dover

It took nearly a dozen trips and one grueling week, but Jewett Farms & Co. has finally landed in Dover.

After 12 years in York, Maine, where the custom cabinetry business had expanded its space no less than four times, Jewett officially opened its doors to the public in Dover last week.

Co-owners Mike Myers and Matthew Lord say they'd planning for the move for nearly three years. After weighing their options and conducting an exhaustive search to find the perfect workable property, the two settled on a 15,000-square-foot Dover warehouse. In so doing, the company tripled its work space and brought the entire family of companies Jewett Farms & Company, Jewett Farms Flooring, and Jewett Farms Soapstone under one roof.

We needed more room, pure and simple, says Myers. To be able to grow as we want to as a business, we needed to double and triple our size, and luckily we found the perfect space in which to do that.

For decades, the space, which was built in the latter part of the 19th century, served as the home of the Somersworth Machine Co., which manufactured, among other things, woodworking equipment.

According to the Myers and Lord, Jewett has come a long way since it launched in 1999. For its first two years, Myers and Lord functioned without running water.

It's funny to look back on now, but it's true, says Myers. No bathroom, no water something you'd think would be necessary for a wood-working company. Space was so limited, we'd have to bring prospective customers over to our clients' houses to show them our work. So it's been an interesting journey from where we've been to where we are now, to say the least.

In 2008, Jewett opened a second showroom in Newburyport, Massachusetts. That increased their exposure and open up the metropolitan Boston market for them. Since then, the company's been growing substantially, while remaining committed to sustainable practices. The company uses locally harvested wood, water-based paints, stains and glazes, and donates excess sawdust to local horse farms. In 2009, Jewett Farms was among the first businesses to join Green Alliance, the Portsmouth-based organization that certifies and promotes sustainability-minded businesses throughout the region.

While efficiency is most commonly associated with smaller, tighter spaces, according to Mike Myers, Jewett's new Dover abode promises to turn that logic on his head.

With our York space, we'd maxed out our ability to do more work, Myers says. Because we were so tightly packed in there together, we couldn't be as efficient as possible. So just by giving ourselves more breathing room, we'll be able to stage our projects better and allow our finishing operation more room to operate.

Myers thinks the new space having jettisoned a once cumbersome bottleneck will soon allow Jewett to double their output, as they'll be able to process multiple projects simultaneously, instead of just one or two at a time.

What's great about the space is that from here we can expand to 20,000 feet, then 30,000 whatever we have to, says Myers. We're no further away from the Newburyport showroom, so in that sense we won't have to sacrifice efficiency with longer employee commutes or more driving between the two spaces.

More than anything, the move is a testament to the company's enviable, recession-defying growth.

What appeals to people is that we're building and designing cabinetry and floors right here locally making things from our community, for our community, says Myers. People might not have known there was an option like us in the industry, and thought you had to go to Lowe's or Home Depot or IKEA or wherever. So when they find out that there's someone living right here and making these products right here, and doing so without any middlemen, they realize how astronomically different it is.

I think people see how our process is more organic, that we're truly designing cabinets and floors to fit their exact space, and making sure the smallest details work and truly speak to them.

Jewett Farms was born from a belief in quality and sustainability, and has grown in accordance with those principles. Lord, Myers and their team are excited to begin this new chapter for the company with a little more room to move.

For more information on Jewett Farms, go to www.jewettfarms.com

To learn more about Green Alliance, visit www.greenalliance.biz