HempWood: The Future of Sustainable Building

“The first thing a lot of people ask me is ‘can you smoke it?’” laughs
HempWood founder Gregory Wilson. But he doesn’t have any interest in
farming the cannabis sativa plant as a commercial intoxicant. In fact, it’s
kind of the opposite reason he started working with hemp.

Wilson lives on a 171-acre organic farm in Murray, KY, growing hemp,
mushrooms, berries, garlic and more while raising cows, chickens and pigs.
He cares about where his food comes from and what goes into his body—and he
thinks the same level of caution and care should factor into what goes into
your home and its building materials.

He spent 14 years in China engineering wood flooring from bamboo—a process
that uses formaldehyde to bind the filaments together. “I’ve got all sorts
of health problems because of that,” he says.

Wilson, who’s an inventor as much as he’s an entrepreneur, was perfectly
positioned to make use of hemp as a wood flooring product when the plant
became legal. The process he developed for HempWood uses a soy-based
adhesive which didn’t work as well with bamboo—a plant with a waxy, oily
outer layer.
*building block.* “We’re still the new kid on the block,” Wilson says of
his company. “Only six percent of America has ever heard of HempWood.

When hemp became legal in 2018, he filed some patents on it and moved to
the small city of Murray in an area of the Bluegrass State that
historically yielded plentiful hemp crops dating back to pioneer days,
until it was banned in 1970. It was there that he launched HempWood and
built a product that would be awarded “Coolest Thing Made in Kentucky” in
2024 by the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers: a carbon-negative,
zero-waste, zero-VOC (volatile organic compound) hemp lumber and flooring
product that’s both beautiful and of high quality.

HempWood grows their own hemp—approximately 300-400 acres annually, and
also sources from other local hemp farms. Once harvested, the hemp stalks
are turned into lumber and any hemp waste is recycled as a heat source for
production.

In August 2025, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) performed the ceremonial
“board-cutting” to celebrate the company’s addition of a second factory on
the Murray campus—one for the creation, sawing and drying of HempWood (the
block mill, 16,450 sq. ft.) and one for transforming the wood into
flooring, panels, tables and custom mill work (the flooring mill, 12,840
sq. ft.). Even so, HempWood is only at the beginning of its story. “We’re
still the new kid on the block,” Wilson says. “Only about six percent of
America has ever heard of HempWood.” But for Wilson, who first developed a
successful hemp wood material in 2010, it feels like forever.

The HempWood product has a lot going for it. It’s healthy, sustainable,
eco-friendly, US-made, 20 percent stronger than hickory, is billed as a
“100-year floor” and costs about the same as domestic lumber to
manufacture. Yet it faces unique challenges because it’s derived from a
plant with ‘cannabis’ in its name. “This is much more stressful than bamboo
was,” Wilson says.

Wilson, who says he mostly abstains from politics, identifying as a
“libertarian more than anything,” finds himself in an industry regularly
triggered by political domino effects that make people uncertain of hemp’s
favorability.

Public schools were big customers for a while (the VOC-free nature of the
wood makes it a safer option for schoolchildren) but those projects have
been paused since the Department of Education froze Kentucky schools’ $87
million funding this past summer. HempWood was also specified for two USDA
buildings, but the federal government froze the project due to budgetary
constraints. “Everything got frozen and shocked,” Wilson says, revealing
his farming mind. “But it’ll come back.”

And why shouldn’t it? Hemp can go from seed to lumber in less than six
months. There’s no arguing here—trees, even softwood trees that grow faster
than hardwood, need decades to grow mature enough to create lumber. Bamboo
is much faster but still takes about three to five years.

“About 30 percent of the population hate it because it’s hemp,” Wilson
says. “Another 30 percent love it for that reason—he estimates their wood
is in about 200 dispensaries nationwide—and the rest are only motivated by
price and quality. And what Wilson’s created is unquestionably quality. The
long strands of hemp bestow the wood with a meandering “grain” that allows
woodworkers to achieve a groovy, almost cork-like look to their projects.

So, no, you can’t smoke it—but imagine what else you can do with it.

HempWood founder Gregory Wilson loves to showcase the projects that
woodworkers make from his product—just check their Instagram account. Two
years ago, Wilson placed an order with Marc Lauver, a customer who makes
bows and arrows from HempWood. Wilson sent Marc extra wood with the order
and asked him how much a bow would cost for himself. But shortly after,
Marc took a hiatus from making bows after a health issue. When he found
out, Wilson sent a care package while Lauver was in recovery. This year, on
his birthday, Wilson opened a package from Lauver—it was this bow. “It’s
the coolest thing that happened to me this year,” Wilson says.

*This story was originally published in issue 52 of the print edition of
Cannabis Now.*

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