We were lucky to catch up with Megan Offner recently and have shared our conversation below.

Megan, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Product-based companies often prioritize the ‘what’ first, the ‘how’ second, and treat the ‘why’ as an afterthought. New York Heartwoods was founded on – and will forever be committed to – the reverse order.

Before starting NYH, I worked in set design, constructing facades for fashion and advertising photo shoots. The work generated a mind-boggling amount of waste. Trees were cut down to build sets that would be in dumpsters within hours. At the same time, I was renovating a home and fell acutely ill from the toxicity of standard big-box building materials.

This all seeded my determination to work in a ways that could regenerate forests, produce little to no waste, and support both personal and environmental health. When I couldn’t find an existing job that met these standards, I created one.

Being a small, nimble enterprise allows New York Heartwoods to stay true to our why. The what—our wood products—is just the cherry on top of a very thoughtful, meaningful, and fun process.

Megan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up in western Montana, forests were my happy place and clear-cuts were a common practice. The heartbreak I experienced from witnessing vast ecological devastation shaped the way I now work co-creatively with the natural world, and my dedication to create wood products responsibly.

My company, New York Heartwoods, is a woman-owned forest products consultancy that creates circular and climate-positive solutions to designing and building with wood. Working with a vetted network of mills, kilns and fabricators, we coordinate and manage logistics so site-based or sustainably sourced Trees are transformed into high-quality furniture and building materials for residential, commercial and artistic applications.

We began as lumber mill in 2011 after Hurricane Irene, and for five years cut, dried and sold timber to redirect urban and storm-fallen Trees out of chippers, splitters and landfills and into creative hands. We started fabricating furniture in 2013, launched a collection in 2017, and began our circular site tree design process in 2018. As of late 2024, NYH ceased internal woodworking operations to focus on helping more architects, designers, home owners and institutions integrate site salvaged and felled Trees into built environments. With our fabricating partners, we still see that beautiful, environmentally sound, heirloom-quality furniture makes it way into our client’s homes, though have added flooring, cladding, thermally modified siding, and architectural millwork to our menu of product options.

What I am most proud of is building a unique business from the ground up that reflects my deepest values. What I love about what we do is that it’s rich with collaborations, supportive of resilient regional supply chains, responsive to changing climate, and is both fun and meaningful for everyone that is involved.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Enjoying who I work with has tremendous value to me, so I take the time to invest in relationships, am responsive to the needs of my clients and collaborators, and will go above and beyond for people. The result is that referrals and return clients are what largely fuel my business, and make it incredibly satisfying.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I started New York Heartwoods, my intention was to regeneratively manage forests, cull dying and diseased Trees to improve forest health, and create lasting products with their wood. Then, the weekend I moved to upstate New York from Brooklyn to start milling full-time coincided with Hurricane Irene. Hundreds of thousands of Trees were down, many of which ended up in the dump – straining municipal landfill capacities, or chipped and left on roadsides. Our local landfill was ironically next to a lumberyard with pallets of wood from Canada and the Northwest. That so many Trees were thrown away while lumber was being shipped for thousands of miles, and so much material was needed to rebuild, was tremendously eye opening. The focus of our work became transforming as many “waste” Trees into wood products as we could, which still central to what we do today. As I write this, I’m realizing that the vision to do regenerative management has begun to weave back into the work we’re doing, which is exciting! And appropriately full-circle.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.newyorkheartwoods.com
• Instagram: @newyorkheartwoods
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganoffner/

Image Credits

Megan with logs – Stacey Estrella
Bed and dining table photos – Nyra Lang
Little Cat Lodge dining room – Chris Mottalini
rest by me