Healdsburg artist creates furniture from wine soaked wood

Rather than sending them to the landfill, Healdsburg furniture artist Whit McLeod has found a way to salvage and repurpose the oak strips put in tanks and barrels to impart flavor into aging wine. After the sticks are no longer useful, he gathers them from vintners, glues them together and uses the resulting VinoPlanks to make one-of-a-kind tables, chairs, wine racks and even tasting room decor.

McLeod, 58, saw the potential and beauty in the hardwood pieces and in 2010 began experimenting with ways to upscale the pieces into a useful and durable product. From conception to production, the process of mastering and trademarking the VinoPlank technology took about 18 months.

McLeod began using it to make furniture in his Grove Street production studio, but he lacked the resources to purchase the specialized glue press used to adhere the oak staves into a strong hardwood product. He likens the process to creating plywood, but with wood grain that can be used in a number of artistic ways to enhance the beauty of cabinet construction, flooring and wall panels.

In 2012, he was displaying a table made from VinoPlank at the Healdsburg Arts Festival when Gordon Martin took interest. Martin owns Sonoma Millworks, a manufacturing company that mills lumber for large scale and custom projects that is located next door to McLeod’s studio.

Martin was interested in the concept and in June negotiated a collaboration that involved moving McLeod’s business into Sonoma Millworks, where it can be manufactured and marketed.

“Whit sees through different eyes,” said Martin, 64. “This is a great collaboration and match.”

Instead of using the spent wood for compost or burning it to generate power, he said, McLeod’s new method sequesters carbon and helps architects achieve LEED building standards.

“What was trash can be transformed into art and used in high-end commercial applications,” Martin said. “It’s the proverbial case of making silk purses from sows’ ears.”

Adds Brad Pirrung, vice president of business development for Sonoma Millworks, “There’s no transportation involved for us, so that cuts down on carbon, as well.”

He cites plenty of local sources for the staves, as well as the upscaled product’s connections to its wine country roots, saying, “VinoPlank adds more value to the business and to our customers.”

McLeod agrees. “There is this huge supply of inner staves, and working with a couple of helpers, I was able to batch process three-foot planks by ‘stitching’ them together.” He layers the laths into a pattern, creating a durable hardwood product that showcases the various colors created as wine permeates the wood. The oak’s original treatment - whether it was convection or fire processed - also affects the color patterns of each piece.

“All the stars aligned,” said McLeod about the merger that combines capital, resources and location. “Working together we can bring the idea to scale and use the volume of what was a waste product with upscale artistry.”

Shireen Arata, marketing director for Sonoma Millworks, also likes the collaboration. “It’s gratifying to skilled employees to make practical, artistic products that are complete and usable,” she said.

McLeod began creating repurposed wood furniture in Arcata and began his furniture business in Healdsburg in 1991 using reclaimed wood from Italian Swiss Colony wine casks. He follows the Arts and Crafts tradition of “preserving the provenance of the wood in a piece of furniture.”

Sonoma Millworks is a custom wood remanufacturer that operates along with Martin’s two other wood-related businesses on the three-acre parcel at 1480B Grove St. Sonoma Pole creates components for Japanese pole houses, and Cooling Tower Resources prefabricates the parts used in cooling towers for the energy industry, particularly SPX, the main global supplier.

“We repurpose old, beat-up wood by catering to architects and designers who understand the appeal and story behind repurposed wood,” said Martin.

A stack of reclaimed redwood sits in the yard at Sonoma Millworks, waiting for projects unique to the wood. The company also has supplied shelves for Custom Red, a neighboring company. In addition, it has provided custom re-milling services for construction projects at Seghesio Winery, the new Rodney Strong Tasting Terrace, the Montgomery Village Shopping Center and Jordan Winery, using wood reclaimed from each site.

The company has a full-time crew of 27 at the Grove Street location. According to Pirrung and Martin, the company does not do seasonal lay-offs, and most of the employees have been employed there for more than 15 years. Martin said he tries to keep his crew working by training each employee to function in more than one position.

Between 600,000 and 700,000 board feet of lumber move through the company each month, with a “high water mark” of 800,000 board feet in 2014, the year Sonoma Millworks grossed $15 million.

Martin said he likes to stay on the cutting edge of the wood business and, in addition to adding VinoPlank, recently introduced the mill to Shou Sugi Ban, a way of charring wood by brushing it with fire to change the color organically, as well as to sealing and preserving the wood. “Burning” cedar this way makes it become bug and fire resistant.

Learn more about the company at sonomamillworks.com.

Contact Healdsburg Towns ?Correspondent Ann Carranza at healdsburg.towns@gmail.com.