Native timber furniture winning product

• Published date: 24 June 2022
• Publication title: Oamaru Mail

The Willetts Furniture website and Facebook page have been taken down — but Colin Willetts’ phone has not stopped ringing

After designing and manufacturing top quality furniture from native New Zealand timbers in Oamaru since 1982, Mr Willetts has decided to close the business and retire.

While there was still demand for his hand-crafted furniture, he was ‘‘well past retirement age’’ and said closing up was ‘‘probably the most sensible decision’’.

The Willetts Furniture business was established in 1982. Mr Willetts, who was born and raised in Waimate, had been working in demolition in Auckland, ‘‘watching beautiful kauri being wasted’’.

Despite having no woodworking or joinery training, he designed and made a sea-chest out of recycled kauri — ‘‘I borrowed a mate’s chainsaw’’ — and his journey into making some of the most sought-after furniture in the country began.

He started buying up kauri, and having it loaded on to trains to Oamaru. Initially, he ‘‘palmed out’’ the making of it to a variety of subcontractors, and his first order went to a store in Christchurch’s Merivale Mall. The owner bought two for himself, and 20 for his shop — then told Mr Willetts he needed to put his prices up.

He consolidated operations when he moved into the Victorian precinct in the mid-80s, becoming one of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust’s first major tenants.

Mr Willetts had been tossing up between Oamaru and Huntly, in the North Island, ultimately choosing the Victorian precinct because he could see potential in the area.

‘‘We chose the precinct because we could see the future and the potential for customers walking past our door.’’

And in the precinct, there was plenty of room to grow. At its peak, Willetts Furniture occupied all of the seaward side buildings of Harbour St from the Harbour Street Collective to the Loan and Mercantile building.

Production was halted in 1992, when a major fire took out the the top two stories of the Red Lion Mill building. The fire started a few minutes into the lunch hour, and luckily staff had just left the building before the ‘‘massive explosion’’.

Mr Willetts said it was ‘‘very lucky’’ no-one was injured, and he was very grateful to the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust who committed to rebuilding.

After starting with kauri, the company moved into New Zealand rimu in ‘‘a big way’’.

It established an export market for rimu furniture to the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and the United States and opened retail outlets in Dunedin, Christchurch...