While browsing through a craft fair in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, Ellen Ruppel Shell spotted a guitar like she’d never seen before. It hung half-hidden behind a display of cutting boards and wooden bowls in the booth of woodworker and luthier David Smith. Smith saw Ruppel Shell’s interest and gently lifted the guitar from its perch and urged her to try it out. She cradled it under her elbow and plucked a few chords. The sound was resonant and true. Ruppel Shell noted that the most remarkable part of the instrument was how it looked – its back and sides rippled like a full moon reflecting off a dead calm sea. She says it was ‘mesmerizing’.
Smith told Ruppel Shell that she was staring at ‘The Tree’ which has the rarest and most coveted wood in the world. Ruppel Shell was eager to learn more about ‘The Tree’ so she made an appointment to meet Mr. Smith at his studio. Smith and his wife, Nancy, live on ten wooded acres in Clinton, Maine. They built their home by hand.
Smith, for his part, began woodworking at the age of 15. He lied about his age to get an apprenticeship. He returned to the craft after retiring from a corporate career. In 2009, he bought a kit to build a Martin guitar. He taught himself to make guitars from scratch. In 2019, while looking through an online catalog, he found a photo of guitar sets made of wood from ‘The Tree’. He bought some and sold each guitar he made almost as rapidly as he could make them. People just loved the quality and beauty of the guitars.
Slash, from the band, Guns N’ Roses, is a well-known and highly respected guitarist. He owns over 200 guitars and says that the one he has from ‘The Tree’ blew his mind and “changed everything he knew about acoustic guitars.” Other well-known guitarists have some of these highly coveted instruments, but not many musicians can afford them. They cost about $30,000 each.
Whoa! But what makes these guitars so special? Collectors and connoisseurs alike covet them. They hail from an ancient mahogany tree in the jungles of Belize. An enormous tree, it had a 12-foot diameter base and a canopy of over 100 feet. It may not have been the largest tree in the forest, but it sure came close. Loggers discovered this tree. They learned it was special rather quickly. The loggers marveled at the size of the tree and began using handsaws and axes to cut it down. The effort to bring down the tree was significant. It took days although no one remembers how many.
At the end of it, the tree did something unexpected – it fell backward and crashed down a ravine, ripping through the foliage on its descent. Incredibly, however, the tree remained intact. Some tractors were used to remove the tree from the ravine, but it didn’t budge so the loggers left it. Years later, Robert Novak got wind of the story. He was an adventurer and an importer of exotic goods. He went to Belize to get some rosewood but heard about this mahogany tree and was intrigued.
Novak is now elderly and doesn’t recall much of what happened but stories suggest he waiting for months for the forest to dry up before venturing out to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, but find it he did. He went back to the United States to try and figure out how to get the tree. He contacted the landowner but was outbid by another buyer until that buyer backed out. Then, the tree was his. Tim Mahoney, a carpenter who spoke fluent Spanish and had a graduate degree in international relations, helped him get the tree out of the forest and received half of the lumber for his efforts.
After the tree was ‘excavated’, the duo split the lumber and shipped their shares to Sausalito, California (Mahoney) and Miami, Florida (Novak) respectively. Word spread and buyers were snapping up pieces at amazing prices. One such buyer was British entrepreneur Peter Lay. Other buyers were well-known and wealthier than Richard Heisey. Heisey bought a great deal of the wood but found it challenging to work with. He made a few small pieces for friends. When he passed away, his son, Jared, a guitar player discovered the wood and asked Reuben Forsland, a Canadian luthier who crafted a guitar for Slash years before. Forsland asked for a second slab of wood to do with as he wished.
Forsland, for his part, has been working with “the tree” ever since. The wood creates a special sound for the guitar and is acoustically near-perfect. Guitars made from ‘the tree’ come from various luthiers and have owners around the world. The luthiers love the wood and their clients adore the guitars. We hope that this process continues for years to come.
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