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From Marketing to the World's Most Demanding Projects
Steven Rossi didn't grow up around lumber. He didn't study forestry. He got into tropical hardwood sideways, through a marketing job at an importer in 2014. They hired him to sell. Not to learn about wood.
But then he picked up a piece of Ipe for the first time, and he couldn't put it down. Not metaphorically. Literally. He kept picking it up and showing it to people. The weight alone was enough to get a reaction, and once you told someone it was Class A fire rated, lasted 75+ years, and was used on the Coney Island boardwalk, they had the same look on their face he did.
He had one thought that never really went away:
"Why doesn't everyone use this stuff?"
| Fire rating | Class A. Same rating as concrete and steel. |
| Density | Sinks in water. One of the hardest woods on earth. |
| Lifespan | 75+ years outdoors with proper installation. |
| Track record | Coney Island boardwalk, the Smithsonian, and thousands of commercial installations. |
Why He Left to Start Something New
Over the next few years, Steven learned the material inside and out. Species differences, grading, sourcing, how installation methods affect long-term performance, all of it. He got obsessed the way some people get obsessed with cars or watches. Except his thing was tropical hardwood.
But the more he learned about the wood, the more frustrated he got with how the industry sold it. Customers were getting the wrong grades for their project. Wrong species for their climate. Advice from people who had clearly never installed the stuff. Companies treating a $15,000 lumber order with the same level of attention as a trip to Home Depot.
By 2017 he'd had enough of watching it happen from the inside. So he started Ipe Woods USA.
The idea was simple: know the material better than anyone else in the room, and actually care whether the customer's project turns out right. That's it. No gimmick.
Where Our Wood Ends Up
The projects got bigger. A lot bigger. Not because we went looking for them, but because word got around that we actually knew what we were talking about and followed through.
Today, most Americans have probably walked on, sat near, or looked at our wood without knowing it. It's at theme parks your kids have been to. On skyscrapers you've seen in city skylines. Around the pool at hotels in Las Vegas. At restaurants you've eaten at. On the training facilities of pro sports teams.
Some of the places our material has gone:
- •World-famous theme parks
- •Private residences of some of the wealthiest people in the country
- •Historical preservation sites with strict material requirements
- •Skyscraper façades and outdoor spaces in major cities
- •Luxury hotel brands you'd recognize immediately
- •Pool decks and cabanas at Las Vegas mega resorts
- •National restaurant chains
- •Pro sports league headquarters and training facilities
- •Personal projects of professional athletes
We don't name names. Our clients value discretion, and honestly, the brand names aren't the point. The point is that when the project absolutely cannot fail, when the specs are tight and the stakes are real, these organizations call us. Not the other way around.
Same Standard, Every Project
Here's the thing people don't expect: the homeowner building a 400 square foot backyard deck gets the same level of attention from us as a 50,000 square foot commercial job. Same team, same knowledge, same follow-through.
Everyone on our sales team has at least 10 years of hands-on experience with tropical hardwoods specifically. Not lumber in general. Not composites. Not framing. Tropical hardwood. They know what works in coastal humidity and what fails in dry mountain air. They know which fasteners to use and which ones will stain the wood. They'll tell you if your timeline is too tight for proper acclimation, even if it means you push the order back a few weeks.
That's the company Steven built. It hasn't changed. We'd rather lose a sale than let someone make a mistake they'll regret in two years.
We're not the easiest call to make. But we're the right one.