00:10It's kind of a sacred space in here.
00:16It's one of the quietest parts of the property.
00:21I'm generally out here alone, so it's a meditative process looking for the right piece of wood for
00:27the right project.
00:31My name is Michael.
00:32This is the Nakashima Woodworkers private wood collection that houses some of the rarest
00:37wood in the world.
00:45So this is the pole barn.
00:46This is the largest woodshed on the property.
00:51This is majority domestic hardwoods, but there's a few dozen different varieties of wood in
00:57here, and it's a constant evolution, a revolving door of bringing in new wood and using the
01:04wood that George brought in.
01:08George Nakashima had a very huge influence on woodworkers and designers globally.
01:13And we just tried to carry on that tradition.
01:17And one of the things that George was doing, to some extent based on necessity and to some
01:22extent to highlight all of the natural beauty in the wood, was to use the wood differently
01:27and shift the perspective of how to use wood.
01:30And so used a lot of offcuts and pieces that would otherwise be discarded.
01:48Even this particular board, it was covered in dirt and has lots of knots and bug holes and
01:54lots of imperfections that previously would be, you know, cut away and discarded and were kind
01:59of highlighting those imperfections.
02:04All of that is part of the story of that particular piece of wood and that particular tree.
02:11The oldest wood here is probably the Persian walnut that came in the 60s.
02:16There was a Philadelphia architect that imported a number of logs from Iran.
02:20And when they arrived, he no longer wanted them.
02:24And so George bought all of them.
02:26There's not a lot left, but it is a beautiful wood.
02:30It's a type of wood that is virtually impossible to get at this point.
02:36The value is generally based on size and age of the tree, as well as rarity.
02:41So the wider and older it is and the thicker it's cut, but the Persian walnut is, you know,
02:47the rarest kind of that we have here.
02:50So that would be on the high end of the price range.
02:53This is just some small chunks of East Indian rosewood that we use for some of the butterflies.
02:59The East Indian rosewood can't really legally be imported anymore.
03:03So what we have, we have.
03:04And when it gets used up, that will be the end of it.
03:13To build a table of this size, it depends a bit because every piece of wood is slightly different.
03:20Some might have no butterflies.
03:22Some might have 10 or 20.
03:23So it depends on all of those imperfections.
03:27But it could be anywhere from one to three weeks for a table of this size.
03:34These are a design element to join together to consecutive boards in a log that are bookmatched.
03:41So there's a space between the table and then the butterflies are holding those two pieces together.
03:46And in these other locations, it's, you know, to prevent any of this cracking from migrating.
03:53So mostly structural.
03:56No nails, we use some screws in certain applications, but it's mostly joinery.
04:02It doesn't necessarily look like too much in this state.
04:05These are all rough sawn boards.
04:08Most of them milled on a bandsaw.
04:09Some of them on a chainsaw mill.
04:11So you can see the bandsaw marks in the wood.
04:14It's rough and covered in dirt.
04:17So you won't see the clarity of the grain until it's planed down.
04:20And you can see the color and the depth of the grain.
04:24When we see it in log form, we'll determine how thick to mill it.
04:28And that will, to a large extent, determine how it gets used in furniture.
04:32These ones were 12 plus feet long and two inches thick.
04:36So they lended themselves to a dining table top.
04:39Narrower, straighter might be something like a long cabinet, smaller end cuts,
04:44small coffee tables, or small end tables.
04:48It's about maximizing the log and using every part as much as possible.
04:53These ones here came from England.
04:56This is English oak burl.
04:58Some of these are four inches thick and weigh close to a thousand pounds.
05:02I believe these were acquired by Mira in the early 90s maybe, I think.
05:08It was before my time, but these can't be found again either.
05:12This is some of our redwood root burl.
05:15This is a portion of what we have.
05:17Some of this has been here for many decades.
05:20This particular one, I think, is maybe about six or seven years old.
05:26And this is part of the root system of a redwood tree.
05:30So this would have been below ground.
05:33These came from a sawyer in California that George worked with initially.
05:38Walnut was George's favorite wood to work with.
05:40The majority of it is sourced locally and it's been used in furniture for a long time for its
05:46workability and its rich colors.
05:48And it's kind of what we're known for.
05:51The majority of the stuff in here is sustainably harvested.
05:55It comes from local properties, trees that people take down.
06:00The majority of the walnut is from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York.
06:09It could be as many as, you know, three or four years from sourcing the wood to
06:14drying it and selecting it, designing it and building it.
06:18We have a local sawyer that knows what type of wood we're looking for
06:22and then air dry it on site for at least two or three years, generally,
06:29depending on the thickness of the material, and then kiln dry it.
06:33And then after that process, it comes to us.
06:35So some of the stuff has been here for decades and some of it gets used the first day.
06:42Some of the clients come in, some choose from photographs,
06:45generally pull out a few different options for whatever size
06:50and type of wood they're looking for, depending on what type of furniture.
06:54So it seems like a lot of wood, but, you know, when you're looking for something very specific,
06:58it can be a bit harder to find.
07:00And some clients will come through and select a specific board that they fall in love with,
07:05and we go from there.
07:07Each of these slabs would be an individual piece, essentially,
07:10either a large coffee table or maybe a book match table,
07:13a standing sculpture even, some of these with such interesting edges and kind of free-form pattern
07:20that it's just striking to look at.
07:23So these would mostly be highlighted tops of a piece of furniture,
07:27and the base or the rest of it would be made from different material.
07:32You can count all of the growth rings, obviously,
07:35but trees grow at different rates depending on where they're living.
07:39In a California climate, they're going to grow a bit faster.
07:43Depending on the variety, you can make a guesstimation.
07:46Most of this stuff is probably between 30 and 100 years old.
07:58It's a very special place. It's a unique place.
08:03It's a calm place to work most of the time.
08:09It's a beautiful setting.
08:12And we get to work with this incredible wood.
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