LOCAL LIFE
From little things, big things grow
by Greg Martin
Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, Ernest Rutherford and Alexander Fleming all experimented with minute particles that eventually changed the world.
Isaac Newton lounged under an apple tree and discovered the laws of gravity and motion.
Ah, trees! Where would we be without them?
Just plant a little seed and- voilà!- over time, it grows into a tree, large or small.
“ Where are you going with this?” I hear you ask.
Well, I recently visited South Windsor, where I had the pleasure of meeting Louise and Luke Ommundson, the owners and operators of what is perhaps Australia’ s foremost woodworking workshop: Evostyle.
Evostyle produces a wide range of high-quality hardwood products, highly
What Luke Ommundson doesn’ t know about would fit on the tip of, well, splinter! Photo: Kathryn Johnston sought after by clients across Australia and overseas. But let’ s return to that idea of the seed. Evostyle has been crafting beautiful chairs, tables, benches and more since 2010. For many years, Luke and Louise would leave boxes of wood off-cuts of varying sizes outside their Dowling Place premises.
“ People would drive by, stop, and pick up the wood— which we assumed ended up in fireplaces,” Louise explained.
“ We always thought it was a waste, so two years ago we put our heads together to find a better use for the off-cuts.” The seed had been planted.“ Eventually we came up with the idea of turning the timber into decorative sculptural hardwood panels. Since then, there hasn’ t been much hardwood ending up in fireplaces,” Luke laughed.
The panels were dubbed Evove— short, perhaps, for“ everyone loves them”!
Homes, offices and public buildings across the country now proudly display Evove sculptural wall panels, with many clients describing them as the centrepiece of their spaces.
“ The panels even attracted attention from the United States. We were contacted by a distributor who’ s now setting up an Evove Sculptural Panels showroom in New York,” Louise said.
Such is the demand for Evove panels that the Ommundsons are currently fulfilling an order of 400 panels— destined to form four walls at the luxurious Westin Hotel on Fiji’ s Denarau
Island.
“ The resort wanted the highest quality timber, so we had to import rare American Walnut. We’ re deep into production now and hopefully, Luke and I will be able to attend the unveiling,” Louise added.
During our chat, the Ommundsons revealed that, under a“ cone of silence”, they had once crafted the timber components of 18,000 Olympic torches for the Athens 2004 Games.
Those torches were carried by runners around the world en route to Athens.
“ The order came at a very opportune time. Just a few months earlier, we’ d purchased a— let’ s say— very expensive Computer Numerical Control( CNC) router,” Luke said.
“ Before that, everything was done by hand. There’ s no way we could’ ve taken on the torch job without that machine, which at the time was just sitting there idle after such a big outlay!” It really is the A-Team at Evostyle. Louise, co-director, manages the business side of the operation. She graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor’ s in Architecture in 1993 and has worked with several multidisciplinary firms in commercial, residential and landscape architecture. Before co-founding Evostyle with Luke, she ran her own architectural practice.
As for Luke— his knowledge of timber is encyclopaedic. After 40 years of working with wood, there’ s not much he doesn’ t know. From timber species to joinery techniques, and especially his mastery of
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8 ISSUE 179 // APRIL 2025 theindependentmagazine. com. au THE HAWKESBURY INDEPENDENT