Meet Robert Griffin, Renaissance man and self-proclaimed “wonderful, kind and loving individual. That’s me,” he laughed.
Most know him as the T-shirt Guy, but he could easily add a few more titles to his moniker – artist, musician, songwriter, band leader, white water canoeist, environmentalist, hardware salesman, construction worker and let’s not forget screen printer, a talent he’s been at for more than 30 years.
As owner and art director of Wolf Creek Creations, Griffin prints 800 to 1,000 T-shirts a week or about 50,000 a year and creates four or five original designs a day at his operation. “The customers usually have an idea of what they want. I create the designs from their descriptions,” he explained.
The largest single order he has ever fulfilled was for 5,000 T-shirts for Caritas, a Catholic charity; and the smallest number was 12, a minimum order. The farthest distance he’s ever shipped was to an address in Hawaii.
“We’re based in Pell City,” said Griffin. “Actually, exactly two miles down Wolf Creek, on the right, just outside the city limits, but we ship all over.”
Griffin began perfecting his artistic talents, while still in college at Jacksonville State University. “I studied art in college and worked in T-shirt shops when I needed a job. My first printing job was on paper for a graphic artist and that eventually led to T-shirts.”
Right out of college, Griffin’s artistic career seemed to be taking a left turn when he went into business with his father, who owned a construction company, but the younger Griffin’s creative flair wouldn’t take a back seat for long.
“I had already gotten involved with white water canoeing at this time. They had events all the time, but nobody was doing shirts for them. I convinced my dad that we needed to pick up that space – that there was money to be had. So, he agreed to open a very rudimentary area in the construction office. As things sometimes go,” added Griffin, “my dad ended up shutting the construction business and partnering with me in the T-shirt business.”
Group sales are the life blood of Wolf Creek Creations, from high school senior shirts to environmental alliance events to chili cook-offs. But events surrounding the 2020 pandemic have affected the sale of T-shirts as they have just about everything else.
“We literally had no business for three weeks. There’s no school, so there went the school business. Festivals usually held in the spring were canceled, like the Alabama Bluegrass Association concert. That’s an every-year event for us, and it was canceled. We’ve had about $10,000 worth of business either postponed or just outright canceled.”
Bob and Leah
Griffin, ever the optimist, says he thinks “things are beginning to turn around. We’ve got a strong customer base and a strong repeat business. People know about us strictly by word of mouth. Some of these people, I’ve been doing business with for over 20 years. They’re no longer customers. They’re friends I do shirts for. That’s what I love about what I do, the friends I make and people I meet along the way.”
Another of his passions is music. “That’s what I really enjoy,” he says. “I’ve had a band for about 20 years. My wife is also in the band. We do a lot of classic rock and some blues.”
Explaining that his wife, Leah, who auditioned for American Idol, is the real singer in the group, he said. “She has a beautiful voice. She lets me try it every once in a while. I am a marginally adequate singer.”
He is more than marginally adequate as a songwriter. You might say he’s prolific. “I’ve written about 50 or 60 songs. We do a lot of original material.”
The band, named One Eyed Mary, plays a lot of festivals and local clubs.
The name originates from one of Griffin’s dogs, now deceased. “She was a rescued Lhasa Apso,” he said, “and she had only one eye. So, of course, it seemed appropriate to call the band One Eyed Mary.”
Of all the hats Griffin has worn throughout his career, his very favorite has nothing to do with work. “My favorite hat is being a dad to my three kids and husband to my wife.”
It’s often said that timing is everything. A Pell City-based company’s owners believe that now more than ever.
Carol Pappas, president and CEO of Partners by Design Inc., announced that the company’s LakeLife Division has moved its growing apparel and lake-related products business online to a significant e-commerce platform under its national registered trademark, LakeLife 24/7®, at lakelife247.com.
That brand includes 14 Alabama lakes plus the LakeLife 24/7 line of products. “We’ve gone from a storage room in the back of our marketing firm to a small retail shop in the front for our home lake, Logan Martin, to a significant national presence online that’s growing,” Pappas said.
The timing could not have been more perfect, she noted. The launch happened within two weeks of closings, lockdowns and quarantines due to COVID-19, so it lessened the impact of having to close its retail shop in Pell City, which had generated a significant portion of its sales.
“We had been planning the move for months, recognizing that lake life isn’t restricted to a single body of water, it has universal appeal,” Pappas said. “Our original business plan moved in the direction of individual e-commerce sites for each lake in the state, but we soon realized it made more sense in a one-stop, online setting.”
Under the guidance of a friend whose professional background includes work in scalability, Lori Junkins, the site launched April 5, with sales coming in from nearly every Alabama lake plus multiple states at the onset.
“Lori’s leadership and wise counsel made all the difference,” Pappas said. “In the first month, our sales already have come in from seven states and 13 of our 14 lakes in Alabama. The appeal of our 24/7 line is growing, and we’re optimistic about our future prospects.
“Like we say in the ‘About’ section of our site, ‘Our Home’s in Alabama. Our Dreams are Global.’ Of course, we’re not there yet. But who knows?”
Founded in 2009, Partners by Design is a multimedia marketing firm specializing in communication, marketing, graphic design and web services for companies, governmental organizations and nonprofits. It also publishes a lifestyle magazine, Discover, The Essence of St. Clair, six times per year.
Thanks to an ever-growing assortment of goats, pigs, chickens and horses, there’s always a lot going on at Caren and Danny Davidson’s Springville farm. These days, however, the place is really hopping.
That’s because the newest addition to the family, a red kangaroo named ROOdy, has stolen the hearts of all who have met him. “He makes people happy,” Caren said. “He’s got a great temperament.” Couple that with the fact that ROOdy loves to cuddle, still enjoys a good bottle and rocks the diapers he wears around the house, and there’s no doubt about it. ROOdy is definitely a cutie.
So why did the Davidsons, who host farm day experiences and goat yoga classes at CareDan Farm, decide to jump in with both feet and get a kangaroo? The credit – or blame, depending on when you ask – is all Danny’s. “He’s always trying to come up with something different,” Caren said.
Caren and Danny Davidson on vacation with ROOdy
ROOdy, who has grown by leaps and bounds in the six months he’s lived with the Davidsons, was a surprise Christmas present to Caren from Danny. A mere 11 pounds when the 7-month-old arrived at the farm, ROOdy tops the scales at about 25 pounds now. He won’t be fully grown until he’s 2 years old, though, and by then the Davidsons expect he’ll weigh about 200 pounds and stand about 4 feet tall.
“Red kangaroos are the largest kind of kangaroos – and of course, we needed the largest kangaroo,” Caren said with a laugh. In fact, red kangaroos are also the largest of all marsupials, which are mammals that continue to develop in the mother’s pouch after birth.
A soon-to-be giant marsupial was the last thing Caren expected as a gift, which she received on Christmas Eve. “It was a total surprise,” she said. Danny handed her what looked like a red duffel bag and said it was her present. “I thought it was going to be a trip or something,” she said. “I started opening the bag, those ears popped up, and I screamed.”
Her first thought was that Danny had gotten her a rabbit. “Keep opening,” he told her, a huge grin on his face. When she realized she was now the proud owner of a baby kangaroo, also known as a joey, “it took me a couple of days to wrap my mind around it,” Caren said.
One busy kangaroo
He may be a marsupial, but make no mistake, ROOdy is no pouch potato. In his first year of life he’s worn a lot of hats – or at least he would have if it weren’t for those ears. Since coming to CareDan Farm, he’s served as a social worker, human resources assistant, teaching assistant, wrestling team mascot and television personality.
His foray into social work came a few weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic. “I was watching the news and saw how people weren’t able to visit their loved ones at nursing homes,” Caren said. “ROOdy makes everyone so happy, I wondered if we could take him to a nursing home and wave to people from outside the windows to lift some spirits.”
Friends who had contacts at nursing homes quickly made it happen, and ROOdy was an instant hit, earning him a spot on a local television news program. “They loved it, and we loved it,” Caren said of the visit. “It was a happy thing to do in a time of isolation and sadness.”
Caren, human resources director for a Birmingham law firm, and Danny, an algebra teacher and assistant wrestling coach at Moody High School, both worked from home during the pandemic, which gave them plenty of time to bond with ROOdy and watch him try out his other roles. He was quickly fired from his human resources position after he started tearing up papers, but he had better success in the virtual classroom.
After all, Danny’s students had loved hearing about the kangaroo’s exploits well before Alabama schools adopted distance learning for the remainder of the year. “They kept asking me to bring him to school,” he said. “They even started a petition, ‘Educate ROOdy at Moody.’ “An unofficial mascot for the wrestling team, ROOdy even traveled to Huntsville to cheer on the athletes during a February tournament.
Once coronavirus hit, though, the kids were thrilled to watch him online. Danny hosted three to four 45-minute Skype sessions each day to answer students’ math questions and to see how they were progressing with their assignments. “I got a lot of participation because they knew they’d get to see ROOdy,” he said. “They got to watch him grow up, and it was a lot of fun for them. The parents’ reactions were hysterical. ROOdy’s a great teaching assistant.”
Kangaroo care
Since ROOdy joined the family, Caren and Danny have turned into students themselves, learning everything they can about caring for him.
ROOdy lifting spirits at a nursing home
“I’ve always been fascinated with kangaroos,” said Danny, who got ROOdy from a petting zoo in Louisiana. “When they’re born, they’re about the size of a jelly bean. They aren’t fully formed when they get to the pouch, and they’re there for about six months,” he said.
ROOdy was seven months old when he came to the farm and was in the “in and out phase,” spending much of the time in one of his manmade pouches and the rest of the time exploring his surroundings. He came from the zoo with two cotton knapsack-like pouches, and a friend of the Davidsons later made him some larger ones.
“At first, he stayed in his pouch the majority of the day and got out for playtime for three to four hours,” Caren said. “Since then, he’s been transitioning from the pouch and mostly sleeps there at night.” These days, ROOdy hops around the house and yard pretty freely. “He loves to follow us around,” Danny said.
ROOdy took three bottles a day when he first arrived and was down to a nightly bottle and cuddle on the couch by spring. The Davidsons order a special milk that’s formulated for kangaroos and is made in Australia, and ROOdy also enjoys timothy grass and a dry kangaroo food that’s similar to dog food.
His sense of adventure is as big as his appetite. A week after arriving, ROOdy joined the Davidsons for a planned beach trip with Danny’s family. “We had rented a beach house, and they didn’t list kangaroos as a problem,” Caren said with a laugh. “He stayed in his pouch and our nieces and nephews loved feeding him bottles. We put a harness on him one day so we could let him hop around the sand. He liked the sand, but he did not like the harness.”
The Davidsons knew ROOdy needed to be neutered early so he wouldn’t be aggressive, and they were shocked and relieved to find the solution just a few miles away. They learned that Dr. Paul Taylor, an associate at Branchville Animal Hospital, had a little experience with kangaroos, helping to provide dental treatment to one when he was at a clinic in another state.
Neutering a kangaroo was a skill he had yet to master, however. “I always say you should do something every day that scares you,” Taylor quipped, adding that he consulted with veterinarians in Texas and Maryland, both of whom own kangaroos, before performing the procedure, which went off without a hitch. Taylor said he will continue to see ROOdy at least once a year for a check-up and shots, and he’ll do all he can to help the Davidsons care for him.
While ROOdy seems right at home in the Davidson’s house, he’ll soon have a bigger place to call home. The couple, with the help of friends, fenced off two acres for him to share with the goats. “Kangaroos are actually very heat and cold tolerant,” Caren said. “In the winter, they just need a covered shelter and straw for bedding, and in the summer, they need shade.”
Danny, especially, is looking forward to introducing ROOdy to those visiting the farm. “If people love feeding horses, goats and chickens, I know they’re going to love feeding a kangaroo,” he said.
“Our animals are our family, and we get joy out of sharing them with others,” added Caren, who admits she fell in love with the best gift she never knew she wanted. “Who knows, once ROOdy has been in his habitat for a while, and we know that he’s happy there, I could see getting one more kangaroo.”
When ripples of the pandemic first hit St. Clair County beginning in late February and early March, it was almost as if overnight, the region transformed itself.
People sprang into action to help others. Businesses closed; others found alternatives to “business as usual” and stayed open with online shopping and ordering with curbside delivery.
Video conferencing and online access became the vehicles for communication in education, health care, business community and simply checking on family and friends.
City and county services didn’t stop. They just took a detour with essential workers handling the load in new and different ways.
Judge Bill Weathington conferences with lawyers.
In St. Clair County courthouses, judges conducted hearings and conferences by Zoom Video Conferencing. In the courtroom, in-person hearings took on extra precautions. The judge sat on the bench, lawyers and clients were seated at tables behind plexiglass, and the bailiff stood nearby, but all were careful to maintain 6 feet of distance as ordered by Presiding Circuit Judge Phil Seay.
Schools closed, and teachers quickly learned how to deliver their lessons online so that students and learning wouldn’t suffer.
Organizations whose mission it is to help and serve others filled all kinds of needs throughout the county – groceries, deliveries, restocking food pantries and providing meals for local frontline workers as well as school students.
Churches delivered sermons online, through live streaming and social media.
People dusted off their sewing skills and started making face masks that had been in short supply.
The governor issued a Safer at Home order, and for the most part, St. Clair Countians obliged. They kept their distance – at least 6 feet – and they minimized their exposure to others.
Customers gather outside El Cazador May 5 for Cinco de Mayo to go.
Grocery store shelves emptied quickly during the early days of the pandemic, and shortages occur to this day. Surreal almost sounds too cliché to describe the atmosphere from one end of the county to the other.
But there was a common thread, no matter what corner, what demographic from which you came. Everyone was in this crisis together. Still are. There may be varying degrees, but they nevertheless are in it together.
By May, it was almost as if it had become regular routine. Social distance, physical distance, donning face masks – they all were part of the order of the day.
The governor lifted the Safer at Home order in May, and little by little, the county began opening up again.
No one really knows where it heads from here. But it can’t be said often enough, “We’re all in this together.”
When a pandemic evaporated Anita Bice’s art business and affected her creativity, she got … creative.
Normally in the spring of the year, the artist from Moody would be preparing for and attending arts festivals and outdoor shows in several states.
Educated at Samford University in Birmingham and American Academy of Art in Chicago, Anita operates an art production studio in her home. She has been an artist 35 years.
But stay-at-home orders in Alabama and elsewhere canceled one event after another.
“All my shows are being canceled. What do I do?,” she asked herself.
Because customers could not visit her studio store or attend the festivals, she would take her art to them. At times when she would have been at events, she would hold virtual art shows by digital means.
Rayder, the dog, has his own following.
“Virtual reality is for real … yes. The surreal has become all too real!,” states her email introduction to her art show in lieu of the 2020 Panoply Arts Festival in Huntsville.
“A virtual art show is not as good as walking from booth to booth in the beautiful town of Fairhope, AL (along with 250,000 friends!) but it’s the best we can do in these crazy times,” she says in an email after cancellation of Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival.
Not only did the shutdown affect her fine arts business, but it also curtailed demand for architectural renderings, which is Anita’s full-time job. “Right now, my architectural art is at a standstill,” she said.
This is not the first time she has experienced a standstill. When the housing construction rate plummeted during an economic downturn 15 years ago, Anita focused on fine arts. And that birthed the cottage industry that has since kept Anita, her daughter Dana, and Anita’s sister, Sharon Henderson of Pell City, quite busy.
Downloadable for coloring after with color added by line.
Little more than a week before the coronavirus shutdown, Anita’s mother, Sara Smith, went into assisted living. The stay-home order, the fact that the family could not visit Mrs. Smith for a while and the sudden curtailment of both art businesses seemed to stymie Anita’s creativity.
A keyboardist at Bethel Baptist Church in Odenville, she did what she has done in anxious times in the past: she played piano. From that came the idea for a video featuring an angel painting she had done; Anita would provide the musical accompaniment.
On Facebook, the video received views from Canada, Italy, Australia, India and all across the United States. The response amazed Anita. Seeing how art with music touches people, she decided to do more videos.
With newfound creative energy, Anita analyzed the possibilities in art and charted her course. “God is in control,” regardless of how uncertain times may seem, she said.
She saw this time as an opportunity to learn, to brainstorm, to plan, to branch into other areas.
“The downtime has allowed me to learn some things,” such as new features on the keyboards she plays. “… It has given me more time to think about future artwork,” one of which is a series based on music. “That is in my mind and about to be on canvas,” she said.
Being confined also gave her a craving to paint coastal scenes. Those art pieces join her other popular series of florals, cotton and Pots n Pans. Her repertoire also includes wood panel art pieces, tea towels, note cards, mini fine arts on magnet, Christmas on burlap, digital art and photo restoration.
As she paints, she posts on Facebook, which allows viewers to see her latest work. Several creations sold immediately upon completion. Anita has made available free, downloadable line art of some of her originals that people can paint or color. Her Easter download was very well received. “I am going to continue to do that,” she said.
Discounts and free shipping have been offered through her website anitabiceart.com, and she featured a grab bag of “goodies” for Mother’s Day.
Daily, she connects with followers, potential customers and prospective students through her website, Facebook, Instagram and email. (Viewers also get updates about Rayder, her dog that sits like a meerkat and has his own Facebook following.)
Art instruction videos, workshops and seminars are other projects sparked by the isolation.
The basics of art, Photoshop and tips for entering art competitions are a few of the topics she wants to cover. “If people have time now, … what a great time to offer those,” she said of the videos.
Anita added, “(Offering) online classes may be one of the next steps in my growth.”
In her three decades of art, Anita has seen “feast or famine.”
Nonetheless, each phase for her has fostered new possibilities.
“There are so many directions to go!” she said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Through June 10, 2020, Discover readers may get a 25-percent discount on items at anitabiceart.com. Use the coupon DISCOVER25.
St. Clair dealers dominate Alabama’s biggest boat show
Story by Jackie Romine Walburn Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.
St. Clair-based boat dealers and local dock and boat house
builders accounted for about a third of the more than 20 exhibitors at the 49th
annual Birmingham Boat Show, the oldest and largest in the state.
And rightly so. St. Clair is blessed with two lakes and a host of
businesses to make the lake season an understandable favorite for getting out
on the water and making the most of it.
Exhibiting at the boat show allows dealers to show off the newest
in design and amenities in boats they sell – including fishing, pontoon, deck,
ski, wakeboard, wakesurf and leisure boats – to thousands of visitors during
the four-day event at the Birmingham Civic Center Jan. 23-26. The annual
exhibitioon also brings “boat-show” pricing from manufacturers.
Among those showing were Poor House Branch Marina in Lincoln and
Rodney’s Marine, Trident Marine Group and Woods Surfside Marina from Pell City
and Cropwell. All brought their top sellers for 2020 to show off what’s new and
unique, take custom orders and often sell the exhibited boats, too.
“This is not your daddy’s pontoon boat,” says Trident Marine Group
co-owner Jeff Tolbert, pointing to the Trifecta 900 hp double-engine pontoon
boat, Trident’s most unique offering at the boat show. “There are only three in
the U.S. right now,” Tolbert said. The 30-foot fiberglass “tri-toon” with its
twin 450 hp Mercury engines can push the luxury ship up to 83 miles per hour.
Armed with lighted speaker systems and matching under lights, front
and rear cameras that display on a state-of-the-art touch screen and two deluxe
leather captain seats, the new Trifecta combines luxury with horsepower and was
boat show priced at about $254,000. Trident had already taken two custom orders
for the Trifecta boat, which is being manufactured in northern Indiana.
Trident’s Cropwell business is one of three locations where they
sell Trifecta, South Bay and Berkshire boats, the pontoon boat lines produced
by Forest River, a Berkshire-Hathaway company associated with financier Warren
Buffett.
Geared toward families, with free admission for children 12 and
younger, the boat show dedicates 250,000 square feet of exhibit space to
highlighting the latest in boats, motors, boathouses, piers and boat-lift
design, plus fishing gear, guides and outfitters.
For local boat dealers, the investment in the boat show exhibits
pays off in new and returning customers and brand recognition.
“The boat-show pricing
brings in customers, and the quality of the products often drives customers to
our stores,” says Eddie Rush of Poor House Branch Marina and Boat Outlet on
Logan Martin Lake. They specialize in Avalon boats, which are manufactured in
Michigan.
“The boat show is also a
chance for us to see what customers are looking for,” he says. Most dealers
bring top 2020 boats to show and share information about other offerings,
including used boats, available at the dealer locations.
The newest Avalon offering – the Avalon WakeToon-Surf series
that’s designed as a wakeboard surfing boat – was not on display at the boat
show. The new WakeToon is in production and won a 2020 national innovation
award from the National Marine Manufacturers Association, says Mark Semino of
Avalon boats.
Aside from the new WakeToon, Avalon has made few changes in its
design in recent years, Semino says. “We’ve been very successful with our core
boat, so there are not many changes,” just new color offerings and the popular
addition of a center console pontoon the company introduced in recent years, he
says.
Poor House Branch Marina, located on Logan Martin at Lincoln, also
offers service and repair, boat storage and boat rental.
Over at Woods Surfside Marina’s boat show exhibition, co-owner Eva
Hildebrant pointed out Bennington’s new Bowrider pontoon, which has a step-down
U-lounge seating area in the front of the boat. The Bennington Bowrider,
available in 20- and 24-foot lengths, also placed in the 2020 national
innovation awards.
The new design won an honorable mention for the industry’s first
bowrider-style pontoon, with innovation judges noting that “the stadium-like
seating increases driver sight lines while providing a sporty and elegant look
not seen before.”
Woods Surfside Marina also brought along Xpress Aluminum fishing
boats and highlighted a variety of Bennington Pontoon boats, the No. 1 brand
pontoon in the U.S. The 14-acre Marina at Cropwell has more than 300 dry
storage stalls and three piers of wet slips, offers full-service gas and a
valet boat launch service. Woods Surfside also carries Yamaha and Mercury
motors and sells pre-owned boats.
Rodney’s Marine Center in Pell City brought to the boat show
Starcraft tri-toon and Silver Wave pontoon boats and Blue Wave and Carolina
Skiff-Sea Chaser center-console boats.
But the star of Rodney’s
boat show offerings was the new 300 hp Silver Wave fiberglass tri-toon boat
equipped with RGB lights, Bluetooth control and a touch-screen system with
forward and back camera. RGB lights are red, blue and green LED lights that
combine the three colors to produce more than 16 million hues of light.
“It ain’t your
grandfather’s pontoon,” says co-owner Rodney Humphries. An innovative design
allows for expanded passenger seating or playpen room with more space per
square foot. The new 24-foot Silver Wave is a top seller and can be customized.
“It’s a $100,000 look for $50,000.”
Rodney’s, which is a full-service marine stop with service, sales
and storage with valet services, also sells fishing boats, Alweld duck boats
and Suzuki engines.
Personal watercraft remain popular at the boat show, with
attendees lining up to register to win the show’s grand prize, a 2020 Yamaha
Waverunner EX, being given away by Big #1 Motor Sports of Birmingham.
At the Big #1 exhibit, the newest and fastest-selling option in
personal watercraft was the SeaDoo Fish Pro, a three-seater designed for sport
fishing. Equipped with a Rotax 1630 ACE 170 hp engine and 70-liter fuel tank,
the SeaDoo Fish Pro comes with a 51-liter LinQ Fishing cooler with rod holders,
a fishing bench seat, watertight phone box, trolling mode, Garmin ECHOMAP Plus
62 cv fish finder, direct access front storage, a boarding ladder, extended
rear platform, LinQ attachment points, angled gunwale footrests with a stable
and predictable hull. The boat show price for the SeaDoo Fish Pro was $16,000,
including a four-year warranty and a SeaDoo trailer.
“We’ve sold some,” Hairston says, noting that by Saturday of the
boat show, Big #1 had sold more than 20 personal watercraft – both SeaDoo and
Yamaha – to boat show attendees.
Three St. Clair County-based dock and boathouse building companies
– Tradesman, Mackey and Lakeside Boathouse – exhibited at the event, showing
off their latest designs and meeting new customers.
Specializing in custom boathouses, sun decks, boat lifts, docks
and seawalls, Tradesman Company’s exhibit at the boat show highlighted
Tradesman’s attention to detail and long-lasting structures. Sales manager Ryan
Wooten says Tradesman owner and founder Fred Casey’s original innovative
designs for boathouses remain the standard at Tradesman.
“The hipped metal roof, 8-by-8 support beams and braces made of
pressure-treated pine” are unique to Tradesman boathouses, he says. He adds
that Tradesman is the “only boathouse builder statewide using hand-picked No.
1, 34MCQ pressure-treated lumber from the water level up to the roof.”
Being at the boat show helps in Tradesman’s expanding market,
Wooten says. In addition to custom boathouses with single or double slips, boat
lifts and sundecks, Tradesman’s offerings include floating piers, seawalls and
docks. They also build aluminum boathouses and commercial and residential
floating piers.
Today’s boathouses can include all the bells and whistles owners
want, including entertainment decks plus boat lifts and storage for personal
watercraft, kayaks and paddle boats, says Eric Mackey of Mackey Docks and Boat
Houses, a third-generation dock builder.
He says Mackey builds docks and boathouses that last a lifetime.
Located in Ragland and in business since 1983, Mackey specializes in high-end
boathouses at an economical price. The goal is to build durable structures with
low maintenance that meet the needs of folks who live on and enjoy lake and
waterfront living.
With standard and custom designs in piers, docks and boathouses,
Mackey’s promotional material states, “Even our competition loves our work.”
Serving Logan Martin with dock and boathouse work on most Alabama
lakes down to the Florida Panhandle, Mackey’s work includes pile driving, dock
and boathouse construction, boat lift installation, seawall construction, and
repair of existing shore structures.
Lakeside Boathouses in Cropwell exhibits at the boat show most
years, says Lakeside partner Chris Hoover. “We see existing customers and meet
new ones,” Hoover says. He notes that Lakeside sees repeat customers and enjoys
strong referrals. “That lets us know that we are doing a good job.” Lakeside
builds boathouses, decks, boat lifts, piers and seawalls.
“Our philosophy is to do a good job for a fair price and exceed
expectations,” Hoover says, noting that word of mouth and outreach at events
including the Birmingham Boat Show have helped Lakeside grow its market.
It is expanding services and has completed building projects on
lakes and rivers from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf.
Lakeside
also provides staining and pressure washer services, sells Wet Steps and, most
recently, introduced a new travel service business. Lakeside also plans to open
a new Lakeside Grill at Coosa Island in May 2020.
