Born in the smoke and sawdust of the Appalachian ridge.
Hearthstone began fifty-five years ago restoring centuries-old log homes across the Appalachian South. That patient work — pulling a house apart peg by peg and rebuilding it true — taught us what makes timber architecture endure.
Years of craftsmanship
Homes and structures raised
Continents delivered to
Shop, still in Newport, TN
A half-century of quiet obsession.
In 1971, a small crew in East Tennessee began doing what almost no one else was willing to do: taking down two-hundred-year-old log cabins by hand, numbering every timber, and standing them back up on new foundations for families who wanted something the modern world had stopped making.
That patient reverse-engineering — pulling apart what old craftsmen had built and learning why it lasted — became the whole education. When we began building new homes, the joinery, the proportions, the way a wall breathes through winter — it all came from those first cabins.
Fifty-five years later the shop is still in Newport. The broad-axes still hang on the wall. And every wall log we ship is hewn on four faces by a person, not a machine.
Our journey through the years.
The First Beam
Founded in the Appalachian foothills, Hearthstone begins by dismantling, numbering, and re-raising centuries-old log cabins across Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.
1979
The Dovetail System
After a decade inside antique walls, our founders engineer the first proprietary hand-hewn dovetail log system — historically true, structurally modern.
1985
Timber Frame Joins the Shop
Mortise-and-tenon timber frame is added to the catalog. King posts, hammer beams, and cathedral trusses begin leaving Newport for sites nationwide.
1988
The Written Guarantee
Randy K. Giles signs the industry's first money-back structural guarantee — a plainspoken promise still honored, still on the wall.
2000
National Recognition
Featured in Architectural Digest, Log Home Living, and Timber Home Living. Hearthstone homes appear on four continents.
2003
CAD to CNC
In-house CAD/CAM precision milling arrives in the shop — three heavy-timber CNC machines from Italy's Essetre and Germany's Hundegger, marrying 21st-century tolerances to hand-work that hasn't changed since 1971.
2012
Landmark Hospitality
The Inn at Christmas Place, Bass Pro Shops flagships, Ritz-Carlton lodges, and Ancient Lore Village's Elven Treehouses — commercial timber at the scale of a small town.
2016
Newport, Tennessee
After four decades in Dandridge, Hearthstone purchases a $3.9 million, 100,000-square-foot facility on Willis Road in Newport — the former Bryant and Pack Lumber Company. "We are known for building large log and timber homes, as well as complex commercial projects for big construction companies like the Ritz-Carlton and the Cal Ripken Experience," says Steve Hall, Vice President of Hearthstone. "But many also look to Hearthstone when creating their smaller guest house. There is something special about a tiny cabin. They might be small in scale, but these customers live large and really personalize these homes. They truly have fun."
2017
Return From the Ashes
A 3 a.m. fire levels the original Dandridge plant. Because the Newport facility is already running, not a single delivery is missed. "It's wood, it's metal, it's concrete. We can replace all that," owner Randy Giles says, surveying the rubble. The setback becomes the catalyst — full consolidation into Newport, with two new Essetre 5-axis multi-head robots that were too large for the old shop.
2026
Fifty-Five Years
Still family-run. Still in Newport. Still hewing four faces onto every wall log by hand before it leaves the yard.
Six words we've carried since the first beam.
Legacy
We don't build houses. We build heirlooms — structures a grandchild will run their hand along.
Craftsmanship
Every joint is cut for the load it carries and the century it must survive.
Integrity
The written guarantee is the floor, not the ceiling. We do the right thing when no one is watching.
Innovation
Broad-axe in one hand, CNC file in the other. Tradition earns its place by holding up.
Connection
Your drawing becomes our shared obsession — from first sketch to final peg.
Place
Newport, Tennessee. One shop. One yard. One workforce that lives within an hour of the saw.
120 Willis Road, Newport, Tennessee.
One yard. One shop. One workforce — most of whom live within an hour of the saw. Timbers arrive as trees, leave as houses, and every step in between happens under the same roof.
You are welcome to walk it. Call ahead and we'll pour a cup of coffee, hand you a hard hat, and let you watch a wall being hewn by hand — the same way it was done in the Smoky Mountain hollers a hundred and fifty years ago.
Plan a visit →縦 · Tradition across the Pacific
One shop. Timbers standing on four continents.
Every Hearthstone home leaves the same yard in East Tennessee — and finds its way to the Rockies, the Alps, the Cotswolds, and the mountains of Japan. Our longest international partnership, Hearthstone Japan, has raised hand-hewn dovetail and timber-frame homes across the Japanese countryside for more than two decades.
山の家、匠の手で。 — Mountain homes, by the hand of the master carpenter.
Broad-axe in one hand. CNC file in the other.
Modern engineering earns its place in the shop when — and only when — it makes the old work more true. Everything else stays the way our founders learned it.
Hand-hewn
Four faces, four passes of the broad-axe. Every wall log, every time.
Precision-milled
CAD-to-CNC joinery to a tolerance a hair thinner than a business card.
Designed together
Award-winning residential design in partnership with MossCreek.