The globe's the limit for kauri furniture

By DITA DE BONI

From the boggy marshes of Northland to the homes of the international, fashionable elite, the ancient kauri transformed by Auckland company Rose & Heather into beds, tables and chairs is on show around the world.

The kauri - buried up to 36,000 years ago under farmland up north - is handpicked by Rose & Heather and painstakingly transformed into over 200 different pieces of furniture by 45 craftsmen in a factory in Glen Innes.

The finished product is then sold at a premium in the company's shops in Newmarket and Remuera, as well as outlets in Sydney, Los Angeles and, from next April, London.

Design director Martin Bell, who had the good fortune to marry the daughter of founders Tim Heather and Lucille Rose, is spearheading the company's expansion into international fashion centres.

Australia has been the springboard for Rose & Heather. Exports to that country - all airfreighted and fully assembled - have risen 35 per cent this year and constitute 34 per cent of the company's annual $8 million-plus turnover.

The Australian arm of Rose & Heather - including a store in Sydney's "renovation row" and a contract to supply upmarket department chain David Jones - has proved the company's biggest success story.

That success came at the expense of a Rose & Heather store in Christchurch that supported a "stable market," says Mr Bell.

But it diverted the company's attentions from the more lucrative Australian market and was closed last year.

Mr Bell stresses that the closure is not the first step towards moving the business overseas.

The Newmarket and Remuera stores continue to thrive and "exporting is not a saviour for a business, it's a long-term strategy," he says, referring to the company's five-year profit roller-coaster before reaching the red in Sydney.

He predicts that exports will account for 70 per cent of production in five years, although "Australia is not an export market - we see it as a domestic market; I can be there in three hours."

In keeping with that view, travel is par for the course.

"As soon as there is a problem in Australia, you must get on a plane and fix it right away."

In a business where expansion across nations can separate management from end-product, Rose & Heather believes it greatest weapon is an insistence on direct contact with clients.

The business in New Zealand is critical to methods used overseas, says Mr Bell, and New Zealanders are the testing grounds for new ideas and the all-important customer feedback.

In addition, where the brand name is used overseas - especially in the Sydney, London and Los Angeles outlets - Rose & Heather management specifies store layouts, colours and ambience to keep the tightest possible control over use of the brand.

It is a long way from the company's birth in Warkworth more than 30 years ago to the 90 sq m, appointment-only LA showstore - which recently managed to be the backdrop for a scene in iconic 90s drama Ally McBeal - but the humble genesis of the company has added to the cachet of the modern product.

Former Navy man Mr Heather and Lucille Rose built a cafe and soon realised they were selling more of their colonial-style tables than coffee.

While the pieces have evolved from the original, chunky, cottage-style pieces to cleaner, simpler townhouse and country-house designs, certain popular conservative looks such as Trenail - based on a 16th-century boatbuilding wedge design - keep pace with the modern fashion for functional furniture with a whiff of built-in nostalgia.

Although Mr Bell acknowledges the inheritance of a stable business, with 40 per cent of buyers bringing repeat custom and many shopping at Rose & Heather for more than 10 years, he believes his entrepreneurial contribution has been to seize opportunities to take the business forward, moving from "cottage industry" to niche player in the domestic and international market.

He says the company has had to fight perceptions in New Zealand that manufacturing here would not work.

"It was tough because we opened the first Aussie store straight after the Levene crash.

"We were manufacturers, exporters and furniture-makers - it seemed that the banks thought we would strike out in three ways."

The company claims to be unconcerned by the influx of cut-price stores such as Freedom Furniture, preferring to think that cheaper versions simply expand the category, allowing people to consider buying better-quality home accoutrements.

Likewise, expensive European imports have less ability to fit the requirements of local customers, he says.

"Our competition is not furniture - our competition is an expensive car, a silk suit, a trip overseas."

With the Auckland stores in cash-rich areas selling furniture commensurate with the pay packages of the locals, is the product a little too elitist for New Zealand consumers?

Mr Bell points out that each piece can take up to four days to make, none of it is machine-made and "like a good suit, you only need to buy once."

"With 20 per cent of the population moving every year, people don't want to be changing furniture all the time, and they need to trust the consistency of the work; trust that it's not going to date in a couple of years.

"There's no fear among our customers that we're not going to be here next year. A second or third-time customer will invest in a chest of drawers to go with the other pieces because there is a level of safety in our brand and in our quality."

Other tricks of the trade include virtual displays on a company Website, which Mr Bell says is as "important as a business card, especially if you are doing business in the States."

The furniture must be aesthetically pleasing to women but structurally appealing to men, he says, and each range should be treated as a separate identity with a particular user in mind.

Rose & Heather is looking to further expansion in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the scintillating promise of supplying eight stores in Soho, New York.

While the kauri used by Rose & Heather is a finite resource, Mr Bell is confident of supplies "in the foreseeable future" and is concentrating on building a base of expertise and quality in Glen Innes to serve a niche world market.

He can afford to be a little immodest about the company's potential: "I would like Rose & Heather to become an adjective."