wood sourced from Baltimore, Detroit, Minneapolis,
Sacramento, Southern California, and other cities and
regions. Many of the products use slabs and cookies
from deconstructed wood sources, but Room & Board
sees real opportunity in finding good sources with a con-
sistent supply of dimensional fresh-cut urban wood.
Many obstacles need to be solved to supply the
retail furniture industry including availability, scale
improvements, appropriate species, and pricing.
But progress has been made and the industry sees
a bright future ahead when the entire urban wood
supply chain works in concert to create solutions
for a wide range of industries and applications.
Specialty wood products
In 2020, Taylor Guitars released the Builder's
Edition 324ce, the first dedicated guitar line made
with urban wood. In 2021, the venerable company
released the GT Urban Ash and the 326ce. The back
and sides of these guitars are made with Shamel
ash (Fraxinus uhdei) that were former Los Angeles
county street trees that needed to be removed. They
were sourced from West Coast Arborists, Inc.
The Urban Ash product line was identified specifi-
cally as a "tonewood" for guitars, but until Bob Taylor
embraced it, there was no cost-effective infrastructure
in place to get the wood to their factory with the
quality, quantity, and predictability needed to make it
work. Shamel ash trees are scattered across the vast
landscape of Southern California, on both public and
private lands, governed by a patchwork of munici-
palities, each with their own subset of jurisdictions.
Typically, when a city needs to remove a tree, an arborist
safely takes it down, cleans up the debris, and plants
another tree if instructed. Taylor discovered that the
entire system is designed to dispose of the remains of
urban wood as quickly and cheaply as possible. This
may sound logical to local government—unless entre-
preneurs want to make something out of the wood.
Today, Taylor Guitars is involved with several munic-
ipal planting programs to expand and diversify the
tree canopy supported by the California Department
of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). More trees
planted ultimately means more trees that will need
to be disposed of in the future. Figuring out a cir-
cular economy that creates jobs and supports the
planting, maintenance, disposal, and repurposing of
urban trees is an increasingly important priority for
city officials who are struggling with disposal costs.
Taylor Guitars plans to expand their involvement with
urban planting projects, and their use of urban wood
too. In fact, the company has recently started incorpo-
rating other urban wood species such as walnut >>
Founder and owner of The Wood Cycle, Paul Morrison, saws wood
slabs. Photo Courtesy The Wood Cycle of Wisconsin
to construct the Belm nt Harbor
Chicago Park District. Photo by Jim Semelka
urban-forestry.com 17
