Rare Woods is a welcoming cornucopia of wood, wisdom and wow!
Rare Woods is a welcoming cornucopia of wood, wisdom and wow!
Seamus Harcourt-Wood in the legendary Rare Woods warehouse
Biophilia is the instinctual attraction that you feel towards natural materials, the way the texture of wood under your fingertips or the rich grain patterns in a piece of timber bring warmth and comfort. For a wood lover, biophilia is about bonding with the living world, even in the crafted form of a table, cabinet, guitar, turned bowl or deck.
For over four decades, budding and professional woodworkers visiting Rare Woods in Cape Town have been awed by the unique scent and opportunity to feel and see rows, shelves and stacks of thousands of cubic metres of timber sourced from worldwide.
Back in 1982, South Africa's cabinet makers had access to only a handful of imported wood species. Along came Rory Wood and his vision to supply and create a space for wood lovers to interact with a cornucopia of over 150 different species, from Afrormosia to Cocobolo, Pernambuco, more than seven species of Rosewood, Zebrawood and Ziricote.
Fast forward to 2024, and Rare Woods in Epping, Cape Town, is a leading hardwood importer and timber merchant in South Africa and the biggest in the Western Cape.
Although Rory passed away in 2018,the family legacy continues with his sons Seamus and Brendan Harcourt- Wood. The brothers returned to the fold after gaining valuable experience in the broader business world.
Over the past ten years, they have expanded the core business and reinforced its Cape Town roots by acquiring Ticktin Timbers and then Saplings Timber Trading to form the Rare Woods SA group. The group operates from several sites in Cape Town and has a branch in Knysna and a sister company in the USA.
In a wide-ranging conversation with WoodBiz Africa, Seamus and Brendan spoke about their passion for wood, the ethos driving the success and expansion of the company, competitiveness, and going against the grain by carrying vast timber stocks.
WHAT MAKES RARE WOODS SUCH AN ENDURING SUCCESS?
SEAMUS. The business grew through the personal connections our father formed in the local industry and in his extensive travels in pursuit of weird and wonderful sourcing opportunities. Those connections were cemented by his endless passion for the subject matter of timber, which was infectious for all who knew him.
BRENDAN. There remains an incredible wealth of experience and passion in the group. As owners, we love wood and live and breathe the business. Our salespeople have an average of 15 years of industry experience. And our customers really do come first. They can phone us on our cell phones anytime, and we will help them.
SEAMUS. Alongside that, I believe we have a clear vision of how to manage the business as it grows. It is about balancing keeping an owner's eye on the smaller day-to-day stuff while being very clear about our strategic positioning and direction.
THE VOLUME OF TIMBER RARE WOODS CARRIES IS MINDBOGGLING. WHY DO YOU DO IT?
SEAMUS. Yes, it seems crazy to keep so much inventory, and you are not alone in questioning it. The emotional answer is we love wood, and our stock defines us; it is what we do. Rare Woods offers a range of around 150 species of timber from our long-established operations in Cape Town and Knysna. With a stockholding of around R150 million and the associated infrastructure of warehouses, vehicles, machinery and our highly knowledgeable and experienced staff, we are Africa's largest stockist of exotic timbers today.
From a business perspective, there is a method to our madness. Supply chains in the timber industry are long. It can take four to six months from ordering from a foreign sawmill to the goods landing in South Africa, and it can take as long as 18 – 24 months for harder-to-source species.
Also, fashions change, and demand can be bumpy. A demand rush for a specific species can deplete stocks rapidly. We have found that holding large amounts of stock is the most effective way to overcome this.
HOW IS THE GROUP STRUCTURED?
SEAMUS. Although the businesses are in the same holding company, we run them separately as they have distinct but complementary value
propositions. Rare Woods is a stockist of large volumes of exotic imported timber carefully selected for each order. Ticktin Timbers offers more intricate short-run machining services, and Saplings offers volume distribution to retailers and larger manufacturers.
BRENDAN. Our customers love it because they get genuinely personal service, quality and reliability regardless of which entity they engage with. We supply timber and expertise to a diverse spectrum of customers in the Western Cape and as far as Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape.
THE TIMING OF THE EXPANSION COINCIDED WITH THE COVID PERIOD. HOW DID YOU SURVIVE IT?
SEAMUS. Before taking the reins at Rare Woods, I was a strategy consultant for 15 years with exposure to a wide range of industries. I developed a good sense of what drives business performance in different situations. We know our key strength is our marvellous selection of wood and that customers must have a continuous supply of timber to feed their machines.
With this in mind, we were bold and continued to invest in stock through the Covid disruption period when most businesses were pulling back on their ordering. Our stockholding strategy proved particularly potent after Covid lockdowns when supply chains fell to pieces everywhere. Demand bounced back faster than retailers and manufacturers expected, and people scrambled for materials. We had stock available and could step in.
BRENDAN. We emerged in a solid position and captured market share.
WILL THE RARE WOODS GROUP EVER GO NATIONAL?
SEAMUS. We have considered it and decided it doesn't make sense. Due to the high cost of overland transport, the competitive advantage of our scale and reach in the Western Cape does not directly translate to advantage in the other main metros.
BRENDAN. We have a strong and strategically defensible base and decided to expand by buying complementary assets. That is why we acquired Ticktin and Saplings.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT RECENT CHANGES IN YOUR PROPERTY FOOTPRINT?
SEAMUS. Solid financial results convinced us it was time for Rare Woods to get out from under a landlord and invest in a 20,000-square-metre site adjacent to our present location at 4 Bertie Avenue in Epping. Doing this allows us to develop a site tailored to our specific operational needs and bring all our stock together on one site. We have been dreaming about this for decades and believe it sets us up really well to continue to evolve and grow.
BRENDAN. Ticktin and Saplings remain separate brands with their own teams and locations. Saplings operates from Parow over three sites, totalling about 20,000 square metres. Ticktin Timbers is on a smaller site on Ravenscraig Road in Woodstock, closer to the City Bowl and Atlantic seaboard.
LET'S TALK ABOUT CUSTOMERS. HAS THE RARE WOODS CUSTOMER BASE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?
SEAMUS. Rare Woods was founded on being the home for passionate woodworkers of all shapes and sizes, from hobbyists just starting out to big national manufacturers looking for the right partner for their growth.
While that is still true, there has been a gradual and natural change over the 40 years of our history. Fashions change, businesses open and close, people get older, interest rates, inflation and the increase in the cost of living all have an effect.
The most significant transformation we have seen over the last ten to fifteen years is that our ultimate end customers are often high-net-worth individuals or groups investing in high-end residential property or the leisure and tourism markets. Tourism and property investment in the Western Cape has been resilient, with wine farms, private nature reserves, and boutique hotels contributing.
TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT TICKTIN TIMBERS AND SAPLINGS.
BRENDAN. In 2020, in the midst of Covid lockdowns, we bought Ticktin Timbers, a timber merchant with a proud 100-year history. We were particularly attracted by its great machining capability, which allowed us to expand what we could offer as a group to include moulded products and speciality items.
With that acquisition having proven successful, our ambitions grew. Two years later, we acquired another well-respected and much bigger business, Saplings Timber Trading. Saplings is a wholesaler and trader of imported chipboard, MDF, marine ply, pine and birch plywood, OSB, HDF, and locally sourced pine, as well as some of Sonae Arauco's boards and Everite's fibre cement products. We supply many major hardware and building products retailers and larger manufacturers.
Unlike Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape seems to have weathered the construction doldrums relatively well. In fact, there is a definite increase in demand in the Mossel Bay to Plettenberg Bay region. When people decide not to leave the country, many move to the Cape for reasons we know well.
Saplings has a vital logistics component, with 18 trucks running around the Western Cape and along the coast as far as Gqeberha.
YOU SEEM TO HAVE THE GENERAL AND LUXURY CONSTRUCTION MARKETS COVERED. WHAT ABOUT THE FURNITURE INDUSTRY?
SEAMUS. The idea of South Africa being a mass-production furniture manufacturer is sadly long gone. Local manufacturers are not typically efficient and productive enough to compete in volume and price with globalised production from the East. Instead, our customer base has developed into a market of lower-volume, high-value artisanal and designer-led small to medium-sized companies doing small runs or signature pieces for relatively high-net worth-local and international customers.
TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR OPERATION IN THE USA
BRENDAN. My passion project is still our little business in the lakes and mountains district of western Maine in the USA. It is delightfully weird, wonderfully colourful and busy. There is a showroom and warehouse stocked with exotic woods sourced from around the world, but entirely focused on hobbyists and low-volume makers looking for more unusual species. The more the colour and grain, the more excited we get. The timber is sold batched, pre-cut or piece-by-piece at the shop and online. There are about 9,000 pieces individually listed on the Rare Woods USA website. The US consumer is really spoilt!
ANY CONCLUDING THOUGHTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?
BRENDAN. From my side, the Saplings message is simple: We offer excellent service at a reasonable price. I want to emphasise that we do not operate like a corporate business. There's still a face behind the name of everything we do. You can always get us on the other side of the phone, and we would like to give you that personal experience.
SEAMUS. Brendan is spot on. We are owners who live and breathe the business, whether it is Rare Woods, Saplings or Ticktin. We want our customers to value the buying experience, the passion and the individual attention we offer. This is an industry you learn through longevity, and the expanded group offers our customers a wealth of knowledge and experience. We look forward to adding many more years of experience in the coming decades.
Written By: Joy Crane
