How this mother-son homewares store found a new direction after devastation
At 5am on a Saturday morning, the phone rang; unanswered, it rang again. Then again. Sandy Crooks finally got to it. “I heard a pre-recorded message saying, ‘This is Tauranga Fire Brigade. Please attend immediately. 7 Clarke Road is on fire.’
Starting afresh, Sandali Home is once again brimming with treasures.
WORDS Nicky Adams PHOTOS Jahl Marshall
At 5am on a Saturday morning, the phone rang; unanswered, it rang again. Then again. Sandy Crooks finally got to it. “I heard a pre-recorded message saying, ‘This is Tauranga Fire Brigade. Please attend immediately. 7 Clarke Road is on fire.’ And my heart – it just sank into my stomach,” Sandy says. “I threw on a sweatshirt and raced down there.”
Sandy initially assumed that Clarke Road Kitchen Eatery, her cafe based at Te Puna Village, was the premises on fire. But upon arriving at the scene, she realised that it was actually Sandali Home, the furniture and homeware store she co-owns with son Ali Mohammed.
This was just over a year ago, and the loss to the business was devastating. When Ali awoke to the news that Sandali Home had been decimated, he was “overcome with emotion.” Together, he and his mother Sandy had spent three years building up a successful store and, in a flash, it was gone.
The fire had started in a neighbouring premises and spread to Sandali Home, which was engulfed in smoke. Surveying the aftermath, Ali remembers, “I knew straightaway that it was going to be a case of starting from scratch.”
However, the ensuing onset of COVID-19, lockdown and travel restrictions have made this an epic journey that neither Ali nor Sandy could have imagined.
When the entrepreneurial pair first toyed with the idea of opening up a homeware store, it wasn’t the wildest of leaps. As Sandy says, “I had always dreamed of being an importer, and at my previous café, Delicacy in Eleventh Avenue, I introduced some of the lovely artisan home pieces that I adore.”
Ali, on the other hand, has grown up in a multi-cultural family (his father is Egyptian) and home was a reflection of travels and an appreciation of beautiful artefacts. He is a naturally warm person with a love of interior furnishings; together, Ali and Sandy realised they could create something really unique.
Throw into the mix Sandy’s acquisition of a new café situated opposite the premises, and the vision became reality: Sandali Home would not just be a store, but a destination.
Post-lockdown, however, it became clear that the way Sandali Home had previously sourced its stock would have to evolve. Shopping trips to rural Indonesian villages to handpick locally crafted treasures were – for now – on hold.
The 10 months it took to rebuild the store gave the pair time to plan the new direction for Sandali Home. It was imperative that they stay true to their original vision of unique, quality pieces, but the place they found themselves in slowly became even more exciting. Sandy, always positive, points out, “We have been able to take the stock in the direction that we were naturally heading towards – clean, simplistic, uncluttered, with neutral colours.”
Ali agrees. “We had seen exactly what people loved and we work to that. We’ve also expanded our gift range; customers often come looking for something really special but don’t want to travel further afield. Our beautiful handmade Japanese ceramic range, for example, has been flying.”
Buoyed up by the phenomenal support of the existing clientele who were thrilled to see them reopen, and excited about new customers, Sandy and Ali are quietly confident they have hit their stride.
As a result, Sandali Home has reemerged as a sleeker, more evolved version of its original, lovely self. The emphasis is still on the desire to support artisans and helping their clients to shop sustainably. They are still sourcing beautiful, hidden gems – always, as Ali says, “hunting and gathering”.
7 Clarke Road, Te Puna
07 552 4556