The Nature Company & Natural Wonders

The Nature Company was founded in Berkeley, California in the early 1970s by Tom and Priscilla Wrubel, former Peace Corps workers, starting from a shop on El Dorado Avenue and selling scientific toys, telescopes, artwork, fossils, minerals and gems, books, clothing and music. The stores were built to be recognized: a stone entranceway arch, a water feature customized to each location, and custom cabinetry for the merchandise, from an original concept by San Francisco retail architect Richard Altuna. By 1994 there were 124 stores in the US and Canada plus chains in Japan and Australia, and 1993 sales were $145 million, with more than 1,000 products running from a 49-cent rubber animal to a $2,400 telescope. The parent by then was CML Group, the Massachusetts holding company behind NordicTrack and Smith & Hawken.

Natural Wonders was the imitator. Founded in the late 1980s in the Bay Area by Robert Rubenstein and Stephen Jacobs, it went after middle-income families instead of the Nature Company's high end, with 2,000 products, more than half under $15, sold in upscale malls behind floor-to-ceiling glass with New Age music and environmental sounds on the speakers. It had 123 stores in 33 states by 1993 and $119 million in sales, and Rubenstein talked about 300, 400, maybe 500 stores. The Nature Company sued, claiming Rubenstein had lifted its formula and trademarks, and the case settled.

Both ran out of road. CML sold the Nature Company to Discovery Communications in 1996 for about $40 million, more than 110 stores, after a year in which sales at established stores fell 7.5 percent; Discovery's Jim Boyle called a Nature Company store "the physical embodiment of the Discovery Channel." About three-quarters of the stores were converted into Discovery Channel Stores between 1996 and 2000, and by the end of 2001 every Nature Company was closed or converted. Natural Wonders, by then based in Fremont, bought the World of Science chain for $5.45 million in September 2000, reached 309 stores, and filed for Chapter 11 on December 17, 2000, blaming a weak holiday; by March 2001 it was down to 237 stores and headed for going-out-of-business sales.