About Our Company, A Brief History: Since 1980
Lucas Landscaping was founded in 1980 by Adam Lucas Jr. at the family farm near Red House, Maryland. At the beginning we started out as a nursery selling trees and shrubs to the public, as well as installing new lawns, building dry stack stone walls and also installing foundation plantings. Utilizing agricultural knowledge and skills obtained from operating the family dairy farm in Pleasant Valley, the landscape industry seemed like a good opportunity to put those skills to good use. Things like operating heavy machinery (tractors, plows and attachments) and growing healthy crops through application of fertilizer and general planting knowledge were all learned on the farm. In addition to this basic know how, we were given lots of help from an uncle who had been operating a large landscape design/build/nursery company in Barberton, Ohio since the 1940’s. Also, called Lucas Landscaping & Nursery, they helped with the layout of our Red House Nursery and even provided design assistance on some of our earliest jobs. They provided the inspiration, and really made it possible for us to transition into the landscape business.
In the early 1980’s Lucas Landscaping expanded into the turf industry. With the dairy business suffering from falling milk prices, it seemed that some of the farm fields could be better used for another purpose; to start growing turf grass for commercial production. Lucas Landscaping could now offer sod as part of a complete landscape package. However, it wasn’t nearly as easy or efficient as it is today. Getting the sod cut and packaged for sale was a major job. For the first several years the sod was cut using a hand machine similar to a roto-tiller or walk behind snow blower. One man operated the machine and another walked behind with a yard stick and shovel, measuring and cutting the individual pieces to length. A third and fourth man stayed behind, rolling up the individual pieces laying in the row. The sod rolls were then stacked on a pallet by hand. To produce a single pallet was quite the task, let alone a tractor trailer load of 16 pallets.
1990's
As time went by things got a little bit easier. By the early 1990’s Adam’s three sons were part of the picture helping out with the “still-in-operation” dairy farm, landscaping, and sod business. Daniel, Jonathan and Matthew all worked daily to help keep things going. At an early age, all three brothers were exposed to all types of landscape work including the construction of sidewalks, garden ponds, patios, decks and plantings. At the time it probably looked somewhat unprofessional for the company. Having three kids (early teens and younger) working on the jobsite surely didn't look good from a customer standpoint. Though, in the future these experiences would prove to be valuable. As Daniel entered high school, he developed an interest in drafting and design, no doubt inspired by the colorful plans/drawings that he saw while working in the landscape business. With some valuable instruction from teacher Bill Freyman, Daniel had decided his career pathway as a Landscape Architect at this point (1996). During this time in high school, Daniel designed and sold his very fist substantial landscape project. A hot tub terrace surrounded with sone work (see photo inset) at the Pergin Farms development on Deep Creek Lake. Younger brothers Jonathan and Matthew would also follow a similar path throughout school and stayed involved with the family business.
As the 1990’s drew to a close, Lucas Landscaping maintained a status as one of the top landscape companies at Deep Creek Lake, Oakland, and Canaan Valley. We did landscape work with several of the local homebuilders and installed sod for residences and sports fields all over the tri-state area. By the year 2000, Daniel had left to attend college at West Virginia University. See the Design Page. It was about this time when precast concrete block retaining walls started gaining popularity. Several projects were constructed around this time utilizing precast block and pavers. The popularity of these materials continues even today.
2000 - Present
By 2005, the well established sod business was keeping Adam Lucas busy during the housing boom. The mid- 2000’s was actually a slower time for the landscape side of the business due to the fact that all three brothers were involved school or other work. Both Matthew and Jonathan were attending school and Daniel was employed with a large landscape architecture design firm in Wilmington, North Carolina. Adam did what he could regarding landscape construction, but the busy sod business occupied much of his time. Around this time, we were able to obtain a newer, more efficient sod harvesting machine. The Trebo Harvestack machine was purchased and allows Adam to cut sod orders without additional laborers. The machine is fully automated as far as cutting, rolling and stacking the sod on a pallet. With this machine’s capabilities we are able to harvest more sod in less time. For more info see the Turf Page.
It wasn’t until 2008 that things started to come full circle for the landscape construction business. Daniel separated from his landscape architect position and had his mind set on returning to help manage the family landscape construction business. After gaining various experiences with the design firm, he was now armed with certain skills that could take Lucas Landscaping to the next level. Throughout 2008, Lucas Landscaping started a new advertising campaign and completed a handful of awesome projects (some of which are displayed on this website). In 2009, Jonathan Lucas started his own masonry company specializing in various masonry and landscape projects. His company is called Cobblestone Masonry and new customers will find that we use his assistance on projects more often than not. We will be working as a team on new projects this year. Now in 2010, we are finally set up to provide the ultimate in landscape construction. You won’t find this level of experience with any other local landscape company period. We would like to work hard over the upcoming years to become the number one landscape outfit in Garrett County, and there is no reason we can’t do it. So, if you have a project coming up, please just give us a call before you make the final decision, you won’t be disappointed.
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