The Case For Installing Richlite Countertops (They're Made of Paper!)

Nov 10, 2023

By Kenzi Wilbur

You've probably never heard of Richlite—let alone considered installing it in your kitchen—even though it’s a material that’s been in production since 1943. That’s because this post-consumer, paper-based composite has a history that's tied up in the aerospace industry, where it was used for years before it wandered into its first kitchen. “One guy in Seattle figured out you could use it as a cutting board in the ’60s,” says Sergei Hasegawa, a 17-year veteran at the company, but even then it didn’t really make waves. At the time, Richlite was a small, family-owned business that took on only what they could handle.

It wasn’t until the mid-’90s—when the skateboarding industry discovered that Richlite made the best skate ramps, because it didn’t wear out and wasn’t affected by water—that the material started to really take off, there and in residential kitchens as countertops. Note: This is years before the company figured out that their creation was a perfect synthetic copy of ebony and started using it on guitar frets and musical instruments. Richlite is so versatile they’re still finding new applications for it, over 70 years after its invention.

But about those countertops. Installing paper in your kitchen sounds a little like a fool’s errand at first: “When I first started with Richlite, as a fabricator in the ’90s,” Sergei says, “people were like, ‘Paper? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would I put that in my kitchen?’” But Richlite is paper that’s been hyper-compressed and blended with resin (phenolic resin, if you want to get technical) to give it extra durability and water resistance. That resin also gives the base material its maple-y hue, limiting its available colors to subdued jewel tones and browns rather than mod whites and grays. (Which is a thing no one minds—their jet-black matte Black Diamond looks super-smart, a little like soapstone but cleaner and more uniform.) Still, it took a while for consumers to catch on—even by the early aughts, they were only selling 50 sheets of Richlite a year on the East Coast and needed to hold classes to educate fabricators. No one knew how to treat the stuff, let alone install it in a kitchen. But that’s all changing.

A hidden, under-counter fridge is tucked underneath another slab of Richlite in the same room by Darkroom London.

Sergei says it’s best to think of Richlite as you would stainless, wood, or copper countertops—showing their wear is part of their appeal. “If you appreciate the way a material like stainless gets a nice patina and ages over time, Richlite is right for you," says Sergei. "I have it in my home and, man, my partner and the babysitter and the kid—they just destroy the thing. But now it looks like an old piece of leather and it’s beautiful, you know?” Plus, it'll last forever; if any scratches and patina start to bug you, they can be sanded away and the material resealed. But “at the end of the day,” Sergei says, “you don’t really have to do anything to the stuff.”

If you’re interested in Richlite countertops, ask your architect to find a distributor, or get connected to your local sales rep here. Price-wise, it's in the same range as quartz (so, less expensive than the natural stones it closely resembles, like slate or soapstone) and just as low-maintenance. Add to that the fact that it’s sustainable—and that it looks damn good—and we’re betting it’s coming to a kitchen near you very soon.