Not Your Average: Andrew Lowe and Lowe Furniture

Above: The Lowe Furniture team (left to right), Neale Grimes, Fraser Matheson, Chris Shaw, Zane Hermens, Oli Cave, Andrew Lowe, Tom Davies, Erik Erdmanis, Cameron Ferstl, Ignacio Dias.

Words: Linda Nathan
Photos: Ignacio Dias

It all goes back to knowing the material, and knowing your own worth. That’s the big message from Andrew Lowe, owner and director of a bespoke furniture making business that is relatively unique in terms of its size, and the scale of work it undertakes. ‘There are a lot of bespoke manufacturers with one, two or three people. There’s probably not a lot with eight or nine’, said Andrew.

‘When the big interior design companies want a manufacturer that’s not a joiner and not a cabinetmaker, they have a tendency to come to us’, explains Andrew. ‘Lowe Furniture is not like an office furniture company, or out in the marketplace with furniture produced at low price points. Our price points are our price points, and there’s not much we can do about that. If you were to compare us to cars, we’d be Bentleys or Aston Martins.’

Andrew’s formal training in furniture design took place at Box Hill TAFE where many of his other team members have also trained, while others studied at RMIT. Despite the handcrafted ethic, Andrew Lowe has a ‘no handplanes!’ policy in the workshop. ‘We use a mixture of solid, thick and standard veneers’, said Andrew. ‘Thick veneers are forgiving, but if you’re not really well trained with a handplane you can slip when you’re edging and just tear it out. There’s an expertise in setting up handplanes and not everyone is trained to do it.’

‘There’s still a hand aspect to (our work) but there’s also an industrialised aspect to it because we live in a modern world and we adopt technology and use modern machinery. It’s still handmade furniture but we’re not doing dovetails in drawers. In a modern society with drawer runners and modern glues there’s probably no need to do that. What we do has a craft feel to it, but we’re not “crafties”.’

Left to right: Shown in 2022 at Relatively Useful, at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, designed by architect John Wardle and made from Hydrowood Tas oak. Inspired by the American Prairie School aesthetic, the Springfield table features brass inlays in a stained American oak top. Custom table in American burl walnut veneer for Tali Roth Designs.

Does it take guts to run a high-end business? ‘Mmm... yeah...and blind naivety as well’, laughed Andrew. ‘It’s just the nature of being creative – other aspects take second place. Enjoyment is part of it. I love coming to work, and most of the guys here are similar characters. We’re all passionate about our work, and we care about what we do.’

Working in a timber yard was a seminal experience, and not just because watching other makers come in and buy timber to go off and make things strengthened his own desire to also do that. Impetus for starting the business came directly from his partner-in-life Jaci Foti-Lowe, an architect, town planner and furniture retailer.

‘It all started 26 years when a young woman studying architecture at Melbourne Uni (my wife) came in and wanted to buy timber for a box she was making. I looked at her and thought – I’ve been waiting for you all my life! I sold her some wood...and the rest is history. Three kids, some horses, bees, a pet snake and some chickens, and we’re still together.

‘But we had nowhere to sell our products. I was on my own, making tables, designing them. Our business came about because of a trip that my wife took to Europe over 20 years ago. She returned from Milan in 2000 with distribution rights for a number of high-end European furniture companies. We sold our house in North Melbourne and financed the business set-up. Now we work directly with designers and architects and high-end companies.’

Above, left to right: Developed in collaboration with Hecker Guthrie for a West Australian winery, the Felix table has found a place in the Lowe Furniture collection. The Belford table join shows a frequent element of Lowe’s house style, where endgrain presents itself in the tabletop surface. Yencken table in stained American oak.

The growth of the business was organic and not part of a grand plan. ‘When we opened the shop I was able to put a table on the floor. We sold two, we sold three – all of a sudden I couldn’t make all the tables, so I employed Erik (who’s still with me). All of a sudden Erik and I couldn’t make everything...the workshop’s too small...we went from a 180sqm to 350sqm. Four or five years later from West Heidelberg to Knoxfield and we’ve gone to 500sqm because the workshop is too small.’

Taking on staff wasn’t initially part of Andrew’s plan either. ‘I didn’t think I would ever employ people. I didn’t think I would ever get people that were as particular and picky as me. But I’m not your average boss – I try to be more of a friend – I don’t want to be mean-spirited or micro-manage.’

At the same time Hub Furniture also grew in terms of sales and staff. ‘By this stage Jaci had five or six sales staff working between Melbourne and Sydney and orders were coming in for boardroom tables for Westpac and furniture for the magistrates court of NSW, and more. And all of a sudden we haven’t got enough space again.’ For Lowe Furniture, it’s been word of mouth all the way, people seeing work completed and wanting to commission well made furniture.

Above: This 3.2 metre square board room table was commissioned through fjcstudio. It is made from American walnut in veneer and solid form. The table breaks down into components sized to fit into a goods lift, a common requirement that Lowe Furniture designs into large tables.

Once again, it all comes down to the wood, knowing the material. ‘You may have to pay a little bit more’, said Andrew, ‘because instead of five pieces for a tabletop we’re willing to buy ten, pick the best five and keep the other five for another use.’

So, selecting wood is what it’s all about? ‘100 per cent. I’m still doing it now’, said Andrew. ‘I still go out to Brittons and Matthews and sort wood for colour, for grain, and to avoid knots and defects.’ Knowing wood with all its variations in grain and colour has been learned literally pack by pack, board by board while Andrew moved, sorted and sold it for over ten years at Matthews Timber in Vermont.

What’s the secret of running a scaled-up woodworking business? ‘You need to be resilient because things always crop up’, said Andrew. ‘You have to be a problem solver. Not just woodworking, but designing to a brief or a need.’ Why do some woodworking businesses fail? ‘Because they’ve probably undersold their value, and because there are also cheaper imports you just can’t compete with.’

Lowe Furniture’s Butterworth table with fluted pedestal in American walnut. Photo: Bachli Furniture

How do you convince clients of the worth of your work, in other words, charge amounts that cover costs and include a profit? ‘Tell them the truth. It’s a hard one’, said Andrew after a long pause. ‘You say: “We live in the first world and we’re paying first-world wages”. We can’t be compared to European manufacturers.’

What about the Lowe furniture style – how would he define that? ‘There’s a classical aspect to what we do, although there’s nothing traditional about it,’ said Andrew citing instead ‘timeless’ designs such as Lowe Furniture’s Atticus table which was designed 20 years ago, but sells well.

Trends are an influence, but Andrew likes to put his own spin on things. ‘We try to be involved in what’s happening. For example, pedestal tables with round straight barrels – we started making tapered barrels with fluting running right around the barrel.’ The Butterworth was named as a playful homage to his lecturer at Box Hill TAFE: ‘Andrew (Butterworth) didn’t like superfluous decoration so I decided to name a table after him with as much superfluous decoration as possible!’

Cabinet room table, 10 x 3 metre, stained Vic ash. Made in collaboration with architecture firm Batessmart for a government building, the table has built-in data, power boxes and microphones. Once again, components had to be designed to fit into a goods lift. Photo: Zane Hermens

Professional by day, Andrew’s hobby is also woodworking – he likes making knives. ‘I enjoy making something that’s quick and compact. I can get a kick out them in a couple of hours.’ And as for most other woodworkers there’s joy in those special ‘finds’. ‘I will drive past hard rubbish, and think oh my god, that chair, and jump out of the car. I’ll see some myrtle from a bedhead that someone in was throwing out, and I’m thinking – that’s old growth myrtle, quartersawn with a beautiful fleck in it and that tree was probably 400 years or more old when they cut it down. The other day I took the front legs of a rosewood chair that I found in an old building site – they’ll go into a knife handle.’

As far as machinery and equipment goes, Andrew is pragmatic. ‘Good secondhand is fine. Woodworkers get drawn into brand names. I look at what we’ve been able to produce in the last 20 years with the tools that we’ve got, and we’ve done probably better stuff than a lot of other people out there that have all the whiz-bang brand-new machines.

The Lowe Furniture team of makers with the largest of 22 tables made for a large corporate HQ in Sydney. A collaboration with global architecture firm Hassell, the project spanned a year from initiation to handover, with construction in the workshop taking approximately five months. This example has a radius of 6600mm and a length exceeding 12 metres. The table was constructed using solid and veneer walnut. Each table is equipped with round solid walnut workstations fitted with hardware that enables laptop connectivity and phone charging. 

‘We have an SCM saw, thicknesser and buzzer, Stenner resaw bandsaw, Meber bandsaw, mostly Italian and English machines. The exception would be a new Taiwanese wide belt sander which is “robust” and works for the thick veneers and solid work. The Italian-made equivalents work better for veneered worked. And we do make sure that they’re all kept in pretty good order.’

Upscaling to a team that’s relatively large for a bespoke design and make business, has also meant moving up to the higher end of running a business. It’s been a challenging journey that Andrew continues to enjoy, however once again, his message is pragmatic, ‘If you’re still spending time on the tools after 22 years in the business, you’ve not moved on.’

Learn more about Lowe Furniture at www.lowefurniture.com.au