Help Matt Christie Restore Green River Woods

My name is Matt Christie, and since 2008 I have been building fine furniture from locally salvaged wood in my small, homegrown studio, Green River Woods, in Asheville, NC. In the last five years we've grown into a regional supplier of quality slabs and hardwood lumber for other small businesses. It's all hard work, and something I believe in and enjoy on many levels. It supports my employees and their families, but also my subcontractors and a family of local craftsman and women. And we save the carbon in these trees from the mulch yard.

As some of you know, my slab and lumber store and woodworking studio were completely submerged by the historic flooding in Asheville’s River Arts District last weekend. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of painstakingly salvaged, milled, air-dried and kiln dried slabs are ruined, along with tools and furniture pieces both finished and in process.

This sort of thing–asking for help instead of helping others, much less "marketing" myself or my need–doesn't come naturally to me, and I just can't yet (maybe ever) put into words my feelings about it all. I was proud of every single thing we did, and also every thing felt like a piece of my own body (or at least imprinted on my body). From tree to table is our motto, but each tree also had stories from long before us, and we heard many of them. Clients aren't just numbers to us. Asheville is our family's home, not just a brand, and this tragedy is truly epic in proportion.

We only had a few precious hours of notice on Thursday morning, for what we were told at that time might be up to 6” or 8” of water (a sudden and dramatic change of forecast from the days before). We drove in as the river was about to crest the road and rushed to elevate half a dozen finished furniture pieces and all works in progress as well as slabs and materials reserved (and paid for) at least three feet off the ground. We stacked so many large slabs that we broke a pair of sawhorses and had to start again. Only because there was no surface left to stack on, I asked Stephanie to put the Festool boxes in the truck (that’s all the space we had in the truck anyway), and we were being rushed to evacuate as they started closing the roads at 11:15 (almost an hour earlier than we had been told that very morning). We drove through a foot and a half of water on our way out, hoping that we had taken a meaningful extra step of precaution.

As the hours ticked by on Thursday, preoccupied with securing our home from the initial flash flooding from the preceding storm system, our kids kept asking to see the hurricane approach Florida and demanding when it would get here. By the time I got a glimpse again of the river from the West Asheville ridge, and from the bridge, it was raging beyond anything we’d ever seen in our 19 years here (but the building was still dry). And the storm wasn’t even here yet.

When the storm finally arrived Friday morning, after a day and a half of rain, we checked on friends until we lost power and cell service. The weather started to clear late morning, and mid-afternoon we joined the huddled groups of people at the West Asheville overlook, many of them crying, peering down at the French Broad River to try to figure out which of the roofs poking up out of the vast brown swath of river was their own business.

The flood waters peaked a few hours later, nearly covering the roof.

As soon as the flood waters receded on Sunday, I hiked down from higher ground in the hopes of eventually salvaging dozens of slabs, tools, perhaps even finished work. 40 feet of the back wall of the building was completely blown out, and the roof appeared to be hanging on a single, perilously bowed 2 x 4. There was audible gas leaking, and muck and stench everywhere. We retreated. As I write this now, even with the roads blocked and locked down, the temptation to try to get in hasn't left me for a moment. I haven't given up on finding a way to stabilize the building and recover as much as I can, I just don't know how or when, or frankly to what end. I still have my tiny home shop in my basement. We don't expect to have city water for months.

In the meantime, my family is committed to continuing to help our neighbors. I am putting my hands and back and chainsaws to use with a friend's tree service (it's a war zone of tree damage here). Our home is a local hub of sorts for various families right now. In the reasonable future, I am committed to rebuilding the finished and in-process work that my customers have been waiting for so patiently, as quickly as possible, from the small basement workspace in my home. But I desperately need to rebuild my studio, and lumber operation, in a permanent location, on high ground.

The money raised here will be used to make me operational again, toward recovery, equipment and tool replacement, and a new space where I can both build and retail this material efficiently.

Asking for help is not something I do easily. Truly, no amount is too small and every bit helps. The goal amount is ambitious, and I don't dare imagine that it will be reached, and at the same time, the loss of inventory, tools, finished work and labor far surpasses it.

My family is invested in this city and my business is also a family, and I have dreams for them all still.

GreenRiverWoods.Com