Meet Your Shaper: District Surfboards
Nate Horne, stoked over a highly welcomed springtime swell. Photo: Dan LeMaitre
Nantucket is home to many eclectic industries, but to the best of my knowledge, there’s only one dude out here converting foam blanks into rideable surf craft.
Horne, receiving his first ever surfboard back in the 90’s.
Originally hailing from Washington, DC, Nate Horne fell in love with surfing while visiting his grandparents on Cape Cod. “My grandparents owned a little house right near Nauset Beach,” he said, “and I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a little bit of time there every summer. Throughout his youth, Horne would get a taste of the North Atlantic for one short week, but even that was enough to keep him hungry for more. “Being landlocked most of the year, I’d just think about it constantly,” he explained. “The absence of surfing made me even more passionate about it. When I was finally able to get to the ocean, that was it. It became all I wanted to do… a total obsession.” Later on, in his teens, his mom bought a spot right up the beach from Nauset Public, and the fire was lit all over again. “I got to spend more time there than ever before,” Horne recounted, “and I started surfing as much as possible.”
Horne, rushing out to pristine fall conditions at Nauset Beach on Cape Cod. I took this photo back in 2016, and at the time I had no idea his surfing roots began here. Photo: Dan LeMaitre
Like any kid exposed to surf culture, skate culture was next. He got into skateboarding and was immediately inspired by the art that came with it. The art in the old school skate videos from the Dogtown era caught his eye — the wild stencils, colors, and designs. He loved the loud and vibrant graphics and became a fan of the graffiti-style street art back home. When he was 16, his mother surprised him with two surfboards she scored from a garage sale for $75. “Nobody around where I lived in DC surfed,” he remembered, “so I’m not sure where they came from.”
Despite the fact that they were “old, chippy, yellow things full of dings” they were a piece of surfing that he could hold onto while he was far from that reality. He channeled his newfound art obsession on those two surfboards, spray painting them over and over. Multiple facelifts and several pounds of paint later, it was clear he had a new creative outlet.
A love of graffiti indeed, evident on the walls on Horne’s first real workshop. Photo: Dan LeMaitre
Toward the end of high school, he made an effort to apply to schools close to the ocean so he could surf, but it didn’t exactly pan out that way. Horne ended up going to college in western North Carolina, about nine hours from the beach. Aside from a few trips to the Outer Banks, he wasn’t surfing much throughout college. Again, he found himself basically landlocked, but all it did was continue to fuel the fire for surfing. “I knew it was what I wanted,” he said. “I told myself that, at some point, surfing would be in my life every day.”
At the time, he was dating a girl who grew up on island. They decided to take a year off from school and she suggested they go out to Nantucket — after all, he could surely get a job out here, and he could certainly surf. Horne always knew Nantucket was just a boat ride from the Cape, but that was the first time he made it out there.
Horne, setting a line on a lime green dream, right here at home. Photo: Dan LeMaitre
The island gave him a sense of fulfillment he hadn’t had yet. He lined up a job landscaping, was working hard, and feeling independent. “It was rewarding to be able to work a full day and then go surf,” he said. As far as Horne was concerned, Nantucket had it all. Still, though, he had to finish school. But after he did in the spring of 2013, he moved straight back. He’s been here ever since, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Like anywhere, moving to a new place isn’t always the easiest thing. Making friends as an adult can be hard, but Horne found that surfing made it easier. “The social scene outside of the water was kind of intimidating,” he recalled, “but that’s what’s cool about surfing — it kind of levels the playing field and none of that bulls*** matters… You’re just out catching waves and sharing that experience with other people who are passionate about that. I think that’s probably true anywhere you go, but it seems especially so on Nantucket.”
A very humble beginning for District Surfboards, some 7 years ago.
With his first island winter approaching, Horne realized he was about to have a lot of time on his hands. He’d always wanted to have a go at making his own surfboards, so he bought a “Shed-in-a-box” pop up tent off the internet and set up shop. “It was definitely not the greatest time to try and be a shaper,” he laughed. “I just knew I wanted to do it. I botched a ton of them. The first two boards I tried to make, I completely destroyed. I had no idea what I was doing, but I got to the point where I had to prove it to myself that I could make a board from start to finish… and ride it.” Finally, after countless hours, he finally made one that he thought would float. “I was like, alright, let’s do another one,” he remembered. “People would see me with them, I could tell they were skeptical. I had pride though, and always thought, ‘f*** you, I can do this.’”
Horne says that, while his experience in the shaping industry is limited, he’s noticed that there’s a lot of people building boards that come from a lineage of family members who give them a leg up. “In California and Hawaii, you have a lot of people who are sort of born into it,” he said. “They grew up in their father’s shaping bay, have access to distributors, and can take their boards to glassers, etc. And that’s cool, but I had no experience, no help, and no idea what I was doing. I was just proving to myself that I could pull it off.”
He’s grateful for those who bought boards to support him during those early days: “If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am now… that was really nice to see, it proved to me that the community cares.”
With a lot of hard work and a handful of island surfers helping him keep the passion alive, Nate eventually graduated to a more legitimate shop space. It was a bit less than ideal, but it was indoors, and he made the most of it. The new shop was only one room, but, since surfboard shapers need to separate the shaping bay and the glassing room, he framed it out into two. The shaping bay needs proper ventilation to deal with the foam dust, since it will tarnish the process of “glassing” fiberglass cloth to the outer surface of the blank. “It was kind of frustrating,” Horne said of those early days. “Always battling the dust, the humidity, the heat, and trying to keep everything good for the resin.”
Horne in his first shop, prior to meeting his landlord. 2016. Photo: Dan LeMaitre
The Boston-based landlord of his shop was someone he hadn’t actually ever met until she showed up on the doorstep. For one reason or another, she appeared one random day, introduced herself and kicked him out on the spot. She spun him something vague about the resin being a fire hazard. Despite smelling hints of an ulterior motive, he humbly accepted that it was time to relocate again. It was actually kind of comical, he says, “like something straight out of a movie.”
Horne floundered for a little while, but eventually had a streak of luck when Nantucket local Nate Damien reached out to him with a special opportunity — he’d scored a sizable shipping container on island and knew it would be perfect for Horne to turn into a shaping bay. The shaping bay is still District Surfboards headquarters to this day. “It was a huge shipping container from 1986; completely bare bones,” Horne said. “He helped me move it and everything. He gave me a bunch of tools including an OG Clark Foam planer… he saw my passion and supported me, I’m eternally grateful for him for that.”
These days Horne is mowing foam in a retrofitted shipping container. What he’s built in there is remarkable.
Photo: Dan LeMaitre
Horne claims he’s not a carpenter by any means, but he’s certainly fixed the place up. It works well. He’s got a dust exhaust, glassing room, and shaping bay. It’s all temperature controlled for the time being. He doesn’t see himself there forever, but it’ll do for now.
Nate Horne. Nantucket’s local shaper.
Photo: Dan LeMaitre
Nowadays, Horne is shaping more than ever, but it’s still far from easy. “I’m actually really at a crossroads with this whole thing,” he said, looking around at the inside of what he’s built. “I want to do this full time, but Nantucket’s an expensive place. I work full time — I come here before work and I come here after work. It can be exhausting and stressful, but that’s how I make it float.” A labor of love, it would seem. “It’s a creative outlet. I think that, on Nantucket especially, work can really bog you down and consume your life. It’s really important to have a creative outlet in your life, no matter what it is.”
It’s more than just a labor of love and a place to be creative, though — he’s also got some pride invested in the whole thing. “I can do this,” he said, the determination plain in his voice. “I am proving to myself that I can continue to do it and continue to make a quality product. It’s all part of a continuation, and today my boards are so much better. I’m getting a lot of positive feedback on them and that gives me a lot of fulfillment at the end of the day — I’m grateful, nowadays I see multiple boards of mine out in the lineup.”
Get in touch with Nate via his website, and be sure to follow him on instagram.
