No Horsing Around With African Mahogany

PHOTOS BY ROB SPRING

Nestled at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, Saratoga has been a destination for the sporting set for nearly 160 years. The Saratoga Race Course is the longest continually operated sporting venue in the United States. Known as the summer home of thoroughbred racing, the area has a rich horse racing tradition and people in Saratoga have a deep passion for all things equine.

See the riding facility being built.

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That passion for horses is shared by Chris and Kristin Grosso, Saratoga residents who recently built a 20,000 square foot indoor riding facility and attached barn for their horses faced entirely with African Mahogany (kaya). An African Mahogany domicile might seem a bit lavish for equine residents, but this barn is not only a beautiful habitat for Chris and Kristin’s team of horses, it’s also a practical, healthy, and durable environment for the animals as well as the trainers, riders and visitors to the barn.

From the get-go, the Grossos specified that their new barn, built just this year, was to be made of African Mahogany. “Chris knew what he wanted when he came to us,” said Rob Nienaber, General Manager of ETT Fine Woods, in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania. “Some of the lumber was FAS, the best grade available, but because the application did not require long boards and most of the lumber was cut to size for the project, he was able to use a lot of common grade African Mahogany lumber in the barn.”

SPOTLIGHT ON: AFRICAN MAHOGANY / KHAYA

SPECIES: Khaya ivorensis

ORIGIN: West Africa

COMMON APPLICATIONS: Veneer, plywood, turned items, furniture, boatbuilding, and interior trim.

CHARACTERISTICS / APPEARANCE: The sapwood is creamy white or yellowish color. When freshly sawn, the heartwood is a light pinkish-brown color that deepens to a reddish-brown and sometimes has a purple hue. The interlocked grain produces a striped ribbon-like figure on quarter sawn surfaces. African Mahogany works well and has a medium texture. It has good gluing and finishing properties and holds nails and screws well. It can be stained and polished to an excellent finish.

JANKA HARDNESS SCALE: 1,070 lbf

COMMENTS: Good quality African Mahogany can be a fabricator’s best friend – with beautiful figuring and lustrous coloring. It often has a shimmering figure. When quarter sawn, the interlocking grain produces a beautiful ribbon figure.

“When it comes to sourcing, all of our African Mahogany is high-quality, grown, and harvested sustainably, and acquired from reputable mills in West Africa, principally from the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, and Ghana,” Nienaber said.

A lot of Khaya grown for export comes from extremely remote regions in Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. In these areas, these forests support and sustain life, as the mills provide jobs for local people where there are few other employment options. Because the forests are in rural locales, the timber companies often build onsite communities for their workers, with electricity for power, water for irrigation, and other amenities.

Nienaber noted that Khaya was recently added to CITES Appendices in 2022. Through a system of permits and certificates, CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, affords varying degrees of protection to more than 38,000 species. CITES is one of the largest and oldest multi-lateral conservation and sustainable use agreements in existence.

Chris first reached out to Rob at ETT Fine Woods nearly two decades ago when they built their first barn which is also faced entirely in Khaya. After two decades of daily use and abuse by the horses, Chris has yet to replace a single board due to damage or rot, so even beyond its responsible sourcing, the use of mahogany throughout the Grosso’s new facility was a logical decision. Over time, softwoods such as pine tend to be compromised, and quickly become damaged by the horses. While dense, hard African Mahogany retains its strength, integrity and visual characteristics for decades. “After a few years, a pine barn starts to look its age,” Grosso noted. “Through day-to-day use and animal habitation, softwood boards become waterlogged, start to deteriorate, and can break with a good swift kick from a 1,500-pound horse. African Mahogany is hard, dense, and does not absorb the wetness emitted by the horses, so it holds up over the long term. It is also very reasonably priced, especially in common grades, compared to other imports and domestics, such as Maple, Cherry, or Walnut.”

“For appearance and longevity, African Mahogany has proven its value in this harsh application,” Chris explained. “It did require an extra step on the front end as every board was run through a Riehl Steel Board Edger to trim the random-sized planks into standard width boards, and due to its hardness, the holes had to be pre-drilled for all the fittings. Fortunately, I had terrific contractors.”

Design and construction of the structure was done by D&J Construction, a firm of Amish craftsmen that specialize in equine structures. “These guys were knowledgeable, experienced, and highly skilled. They seem to have woodworking in their DNA. They were really a pleasure to work with, and I think they enjoyed being able to use their skills on an unusual project.”

The L-shaped barn includes an indoor riding ring that accommodates clinics, events, and training sessions, a viewing room overlooking the riding ring, a utility and tack area, a wash stall for the horses, storage areas for feed and hay, a kitchen, bathroom, and shower, in addition to the horses’ stalls. All walls, stalls, ceilings, dividers, and aisles are faced in African Mahogany, top to bottom, including the kick walls in the arena.

“I can’t say for sure that the horses appreciate the luminous glow and natural beauty of African Mahogany, but I do know that it provides a safer, healthier environment for them,” Grosso said. “The lower boards in the stalls tend to regularly be wet, and African Mahogany’s resistance to rot improves safety over time as you do not have to worry about a horse kicking a board and getting its hoof stuck in a broken or rotted board. Plus, horses kick, chew, and tend to break things and the hardness of this wood inhibits these behaviors, and so it is also good for them in that way.”

The farm is home to 10 beautiful horses. They are either active or retired competition dressage horses, including several that were born at the farm. Dressage is an Olympic sport that is quite popular in Europe and requires a lot of patience as it takes 8 to 10 years of training before a horse has the ability to compete at the top levels. It is much less stressful on the horses than either thoroughbred racing or eventing, and so dressage horses often compete into their early twenties. Once retired, Chris and Kristin’s horses peacefully live out the rest of their lives turned out in pastures by day and surrounded by the warm glow their beautiful barn at night.