Category: St. Clair Living

St. Clair Horse Country

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Lusitanos, Arabians find home in St. Clair

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

From the deserts of ancient Arabia and the bullfighting rings of Portugal, two distinctly different yet equally majestic horse breeds have made their way to St. Clair County. World-class Arabians prance and play at Don Olvey’s Aradon Farm in Odenville, while purebred Lusitanos strut and cavort at Robert and Carolyn Crum’s Shangrila Farm in Gallant.

The owners of both farms started their breeding programs for the same reason: They fell in love with a breed. Olvey’s passion started with a day at a friend’s barn, while the Crums began by admiring an exhibition horse. In each case, a spark was ignited instantly, and their encounters changed the course of their lives.

“I had a friend in the Arabian horse business, and he had an Open Barn with food and tours and invited me to come out,” says Olvey, 76, who rode American Quarter Horses as a child. “I saw these beautiful Arabians, a breed I had never seen before. I decided then and there to get into raising them.”

Olvey bought his first Arabian in 1985 while living in Hoover. He built a barn on his stepfather’s farm in Tuscaloosa County, where he kept his horses until he could find a place of his own. He considers his discovery of the land that was to become Aradon Farm as something magical.

“I wasn’t familiar with this side of town,” he says of Odenville. “I went to Pell City one day, looked on a map and saw Highway 174. I thought I would ride through there on my way home. Through the trees I saw this beautiful pasture, and I said to myself, ‘Oh, would I love to have that.’ I drove another block, and saw a for-sale sign. I called the Realtor immediately and signed the contract that day. It was just what I wanted.”

That first horse Olvey purchased was a stallion, because “every man thinks he wants a stallion,” he says. Then he bought four mares out of Missouri and had them shipped to Alabama. He did a lot of research to learn the industry, studying national Arabian horse publications to get familiar with the bloodlines. “Even in the Arabian breed, there are several different bloodlines,” says Olvey. “You’ve got the Egyptian strain, the Polish, the Russian, the Spanish, and the American strain — called domestic because we’ve taken all those others and blended them together.”

Although his original horses were either sold or died, they gave Olvey his start toward becoming one of the largest Arabian breeders in the Southeast. He has two domestic Arabian stallions, both of them champions. Giaccomo was a Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show Champion 2-year-old colt, a U.S. National Top Ten Yearling Colt and a Region 15 Champion Stallion. PS Andiamo is a U.S. and Canada Top Ten Stallion. Both were sired by Marwan Al Shaquab, who is “the hottest thing in the (Arabian) breeds right now,” according to Olvey.

His two stallions and 12 broodmares produce six to 10 foals per year, which are weaned at four months and sell for $5,000 to $80,000 each. He also breeds to other people’s stallions, and ships semen from his own stallions to other breeders for a $2,500 stud fee. He has eight babies due next year. “We breed for halter horses, and that’s what we mainly show,” Olvey says.

Charlie Watts, one of the Rolling Stones rock group, bought one of Olvey’s mares and flew her to England. Olvey has spent time around Wayne Newton, one of the top Arabian breeders in the country, as well as the late actor Patrick Swayze. “At a horse show, everybody is just an Arabian horse person,” Olvey says. “Even Swayze you wouldn’t have thought was anybody special. He was there because he loved the horse and he wanted to compete and blend in.”

Until recently, his resident trainer, Les Sichini, handled the horses at shows. But three years ago Olvey started showing as an amateur with two of his Aradon-bred colts, Pysnario and Phantasy. He started winning right out of the chute.

“I’ve never had so much fun,” he admits. “I won in Scottsdale, won the Region 12 (a big Southeast show) and at National, I was in the top 10 out of 29 horses. I was thrilled with that.”

While he used to enjoy trail riding, he can’t ride anymore due to back surgery. His carpet business, Don’s Carpet One, keeps him pretty busy, and so does his fight with cancer. “In 2003 I was told I had two years to live,” he says. “Three and a half years later, I was told that again. I’ve been undergoing treatments for nine years, and I’m still in the battle. I’m really a strong believer, I’m a Christian, and I’m at peace with whatever God wants.”

Portuguese roots planted in Gallant

Robert and Carolyn Crum were living in West Palm Beach, Fla., when they saw their first Andalusian horse. “He was a gorgeous black exhibition horse, and we started talking to his trainer,” Carolyn relates. “We decided to start breeding Andalusians.”

In 2001, they went to Mexico to get married on the farm of a breeder of Andalusians and Lusitanos. Intending to buy an Andalusian, they came home with a Lusitano stallion and mare instead.

The Andalusian and the Lusitano are related, both having come originally from Spain, according to Carolyn. That country used them for bullfighting. When Spain outlawed bullfighting, there was nothing for the Spanish horse to do. So Spaniards started breeding them for beauty and elegance. The Portuguese still used these horses for bullfighting and trained them for the ring by having them work cattle in the fields.

“The Portuguese horse stayed more true to its roots than the Andalusian did,” Carolyn says. “The Lusitano is from Portugal.”

Originally from Birmingham, Carolyn was an attorney in Atlanta for several years when she decided to make a change and moved to Florida. That’s where she met Robert, who was in the construction business. It was a second marriage for both of them, and they shared a common interest in horses.

For the next 10 years, the Crums bred, trained and showed their horses. They concentrated on quality, rather than quantity, and their two stallions and two broodmares produced one or two babies each year. But they usually had half a dozen foals, colts and fillies of various ages and levels of training. Then the economy went sour, construction work dried up, and their health took a turn for the worse. The Crums had to make a difficult decision. “We almost got out of the horse business,” Carolyn says. “But we enjoy being able to see them every day. So we downsized to a smaller operation and changed our focus to breeding only.”

They also decided to leave Florida. With Carolyn’s roots in Alabama, they looked in this state and in Tennessee for some farmland and found a place in Gallant that was already set up for breeding warmbloods. They moved there in January, bringing trainer Whitney Wenzel, an Auburn University graduate from South Carolina, with them.

“It was a difficult move for 11 horses and all that equipment,” says Carolyn. “Half of my furniture is still in my guest house in Florida.” The Crums live in an apartment that’s part of their 17-stall barn, with plans to build a house one day.

Their breeding stock now includes three stallions and two broodmares. The grand old man of Shangrila Farms is Exaustivo, a 27-year-old who was born and trained at the Alter Real Stud in Portugal. The Alter Real was founded by the king of Portugal in the 1500s to breed classical equitation horses. Veneno Imperial is their 10-year-old exotic, buckskin-colored stallion imported from Brazil. Bolero (nicknamed Muffin) is a 6-year-old Shangrila Farm baby, whose grandsire was an international champion jumper, Novilheiro, ridden by famed British horseman John Whittaker. Bolero and Veneno have been featured in several international equine calendars.

They also have a couple of pets, including a rescued thoroughbred and a miniature horse named Cooper who loves to escape his corral and do laps around the barn. In addition, Whitney has five horses of her own.

At seven months, the Shangrila foals are weaned and ready to be matched up with a buyer, if they haven’t already been sold in-utero (before birth). The latter sell for $6,000, while the foals go for $8,000 and the weanlings for $10,000. The average would be $18,000 for a 2- to 3-year old, $22,000 – $25,000 for a 4-year-old under saddle with basic training. It isn’t unusual, however, for a Lusitano with great bloodlines and basic dressage training to go for $45,000, while one at the Grand Prix level of dressage could command $125,000.

“Lusitanos are used primarily for dressage. That’s where the market is,” Carolyn says. “They make wonderful cow horses, but no one wants one for that. They are too expensive for that discipline.”

After two heart surgeries, Carolyn, 75, can no longer ride. Neither does Robert, 72. The horses keep them young in mind and heart, though. They produce a calming effect on Carolyn, whether she’s rubbing their necks or watching them frolic in the pasture. The babies are her biggest joy, and she’s looking forward to a new crop next year.

“We haven’t had any babies for the last two years because of the economy, ” she says. “The number of our semen shipments are down, too. Horses are a reflection of the economy. But I‘m optimistic about this year.”

Features

The Flying Pig

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Grapes, grains and gifts make
patrons flock to Springville shop

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

Dené Huff loves drinking good wine and craft beers, and smoking a good cigar. By opening The Flying Pig in Springville, she was able to bring all her vices together under one roof. “I got tired of driving to Atlanta for good beer, good wine and my wine kits,” she says.

She opened October 28, 2011, in the little house behind and between PNC (formerly RBC) Bank and the Springville Antique Mall. She specializes in imported and domestic craft beers and wine from small, family-owned wineries, has on-premise and off-premise licenses, and sells wine openers and aerators, Red Neck wine glasses (small mason jars on stems), and other adult-beverage-related gifts. Upstairs, she has grains, yeast, hops, wine kits and equipment for hobbyists to make their own wine. Hence her shop description, “grapes, grains and gifts.”

The name for her business came from her frustration in dealing with the Alabama Beverage Control Board. She couldn’t get them to return her phone calls, they messed up her paperwork five times, had her driving back and forth between Ashville, Pell City and Lincoln to get a good set of fingerprints. “I must have logged 1,500 miles trying to get everything resolved,” she says. “One day I announced, ‘We’ll get this resolved when pigs fly. …’ My kids heard, ‘when pigs fly,’” and said that’s what I should name my shop.”

Originally from Texas, Dené’s military background (she was a Marine corpsman) and her husband’s job have taken them all over the United States. “Just throw a dart at a map, and I’ve lived there,” she says. She and husband, Joe, and daughters Lily, 13, and Aria,11, came to Springville two and a half years ago when Valspar made Joe manager of its Birmingham plant. While in Trussville looking at houses, the family took a wrong turn, found the Drive-In at Argo, and fell in love. They stumbled onto Springville right after Memorial Day, when the flags were still up. “I knew it was home,” she says.

She doesn’t carry “grocery-store beer” brands, seeking more imagination in the line she sells. Craft beers, on the other hand, have hundreds of years of thought, ingenuity and, well, craftsmanship behind them. They aren’t mass produced, and some have six or seven hops in them. “I get women in here saying, ‘I hate beer,’ but before they leave here, I’ve usually found a beer they like,” Dené claims.

Within three months of opening, she had a regular clientele. Friday and Saturday nights seem to be their favorite times to meet, but you’ll run into at least one of them almost any night.

“We’ve been friends with the Davises for 20 years,” says Laura Sparks, as she sips her favorite Banana Nut Bread Beer. “We used to meet at each others’ houses, now we come here. We like the hospitality, and that our favorite beers are kept cold. A lot of beer here you won’t find at local bars, convenience stores or Walmart.”

The atmosphere at The Flying Pig is such that even her 15-year-old daughter feels comfortable. “She can’t drink the alcohol, but she’s looking forward to the designer sodas that are coming,” Laura says.

“You can sample several beers and wine from all over the world,” says her husband, Ray. “You can’t sit here and drink to oblivion, though. This is not a bar.”

Rob Brantley drops by two to four times per week for the beer and cigars he can’t find anywhere else. “You can have a good meal at a local restaurant and top it off here with a good wine or beer. And it’s walking distance from my house,” he says.

Gary Davis is a local blacksmith who, along with wife, Susan, frequents The Flying Pig for two reasons: Dené and the beer. “We like the atmosphere,” Susan says. “It’s not a smoky bar. There are no obnoxious people. You could bring your family. Dené knows her customers, knows when to cut off their beer.”

Dené is experimenting with live bands on weekends, and has decided acoustic instruments work best in such a small setting, so people can talk over them. A self-described foodie, she loves to experiment with recipes and has made friends with customers who share her interests. Describing herself and her girlfriends as “adventuresome,” she has been known to have buffalo or elk flown in for a dinner party. “My girlfriends will try anything,” she says.

One such gal pal is KoKo McTyeire, who subscribes to Cook’s Illustrated, and tries many of the upscale food publication’s recipes. The two frequently gather at one or the other’s house to experiment with food, and have been known to invite whoever is in the shop at closing time.

Asked to come up with a scrumptious menu and to pair it with good wines, Dené and KoKo prepared a meal for two Discover contributors that nearly knocked them off their bar stools. The menu started with an appetizer of Roasted Red Peppers and garlic hummus topped with chopped tomatoes and served with torn pieces of naan, a Middle Eastern flat bread. She also had a tray of Kalamata olives and bleu cheese-stuffed olives. The entrée was pot-roasted pork loin with blueberry and Marsala wine reduction sauce, and dessert was fresh berry gratins with Zabaglione topping.

“We selected two quick-and-easy recipes along with two that are a little more involved,” Dené says. “We used ingredients that are readily available, either from local vendors or grocery stores. We bought the pork roast at the Chopping Block in Springville, for example, and KoKo grew the blueberries.”

The hummus is easy, costs about $3 and took Dené five minutes to make. A versatile appetizer, it can be served with pita or tortilla chips. Her recipe serves four to six people, and leftovers will keep several days when stored in a tight container in the refrigerator.

Dené paired the hummus with a $9 bottle of Vista Point Pinot Grigio from California and, for those who prefer grains to grapes, Unibroue La Findu Monde, a French beer from Quebec. She used the Vista Point to show that you don’t have to spend $45 to have a good-tasting wine. “The Pinot Grigio is light and crisp and makes a nice complement for the garlic in the hummus,” she says. “Lots of my customers swear it has a vegetable undertone.”

She chose the beer because she wanted to show that beer can go with everything, from starters through entrées and on to desserts. “I think the undertones of this beer make it a wonderful addition to the flavors of the roasted peppers and garlic,” she adds.

The first time KoKo prepared the roast pork, she couldn’t find the herbes de Provence. So she looked it up online, and found what herbs were in the mix. “I had most of them on my shelves, so I made my own mix,” she says. “Now, you can buy it at Walmart.”

For the entrée, Dené chose a buttery Chardonnay called Creme dy Lis, and a beer called Boulevard Smokestack Series Sixth Glass Quadruple Ale. She picked the buttery (oaked) Chardonnay for the pork “just to add another layer and texture to the tongue,” she says.

“I enjoy the oak flavors of the wine with pork, chicken and delicate fish,” she says. “I didn’t want something to overpower the roasted pork. I believe a red would have done that. I like the quad beer for that exact same reason. It has a gentle flavor of spice that complemented the herbs on the pork, without overpowering the taste.”

The dessert pairings of Pimo Amoré Moscato wine and Lindemans Kriek Lambic beer were no-brainers. She says the Moscato is always a safe bet. The beer is just something fun she thought would complement the berries. “It doesn’t take a sommelier to be able to pair wines and beer with your food,” Dené believes. “It just takes a little understanding of what you are drinking, Google and simply knowing what you like. If you don’t particularly care for a Cab (Cabernet Sauvignon) by itself, pair it with a wonderful steak or roasted lamb. It will change your opinion of that particular grape. You must be willing to be adventurous if you want your pallet to expand.”

The dessert was prepared with KoKo’s homegrown blueberries, and Dené felt that the Kriek Lambic, a Belgium malt beverage with black cherries added, would pair well with it. “I call Lambic the original wine cooler,” she says of the fruity-tasting, sweet beer. “I sell what I like. That way, if I go belly up, all this beer and wine are mine!”

• Check out our recipes in the April 2012 edition of Discover, The Essence of St. Clair Magazine.

Friendly Neighborhood Airport

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Story by Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Jerry Martin

There is a funny joke that gets told throughout the aviation community about pilots. It goes a little something like this: What is the difference between a pilot and God? God doesn’t think he’s a pilot.

The meaning of the joke, of course, is that pilots are a different breed, a gonzo blend of Evel Knievel and Steve Austin (The Million-Dollar Man, to all of you born after 1980), willing to cheat the laws of physics, nature and death itself for the ultimate thrill.

To put oneself in the cockpit and spit in the face of gravity certainly takes guts, but what personality traits must it take to build and fly a plane? If Odenville resident Louis “Rusty” Hood is any indication, the answer is a combination of humility, honesty, and decency, with a little spirit of adventure thrown in for good measure.

A retired flight engineer from the Army National Guard, Hood might possibly be one of the nicest and most humble people you’re likely to meet. He just happens to enjoy building and flying experimental aircraft so much that he lives next to his own airstrip. His garage does double duty as a hangar, currently housing a pair of light, propeller-driven airplanes.

The first one is based on a 1930s design and in disrepair at the moment. Hood says he’s looking to part the thing out because “you know, they’ve improved airplane design since the ‘30s, both in construction techniques and design.”

The main attraction in Hood’s garage/hangar is a Murphy Rebel, a small, shiny-silver, two-seater airplane that looks more like a museum exhibit from a bygone era than an actual working plane. However, as Hood explains, this little baby tops out at around 90 miles per hour, can carry about 44 gallons of fuel (good for about six hours of flying), and is a highly popular aircraft in Canada, where it is primarily flown in wooded areas. It’s one of several airplanes Hood has built on his own in almost 40 years of flying.

“It comes in a box, and all the parts are there, and you apply your craftsmanship and 20,000 rivets. Then you add your engine, instruments and your radios, and you got an airplane,” Hood says. “Of course that’s about 10 seconds worth of talk and about two year’s worth of work.”

Somewhat shy and understated, Hood isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a gonzo, risk-taker in the air. “I’m no thrill seeker by any means,” says Hood. “I try to be very careful. I’ve been flying both personally and in the military since ‘75, I guess. I don’t take flying lightly.”

Thirty-plus years of military flying will do that to a guy.

Build them, and they will fly

Hood became interested in planes and flight while working at a motorcycle dealership in the afternoons while in high school. A tinker by nature, Hood first came upon the notion of building his own plane after noticing an ad in the back of Popular Mechanics magazine for a Benson Gyrocopter, a rotorcraft which looks like a cross between a helicopter and a go-cart.

It was in the middle of winter, the slow season at the dealership, so Hood decided to ride his motorcycle to the Benson factory in Raleigh, North Carolina, to look into buying his own gyrocopter. “I just wasn’t impressed, and I did a little research, and I found that most of those plans weren’t viable planes, so I decided against that. But, that did get me started on the idea of building my own plane,” Hood says.

Hood soon realized he didn’t have the funds to purchase his own plane, but began investigating planes he could build on his own. His search led him to an aircraft designed by a Burt Rutan, the experimental aircraft designer famous for designing the Model 86 Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, among other accomplishments.

“He designed a little airplane called Quickie. It was a single-seat all fiberglass, composite, tandem wing. It had a wing out front and a wing in the middle, but no wing on the tail, which is a little unusual,” Hood explains. “If you know anything about Burt Rutan, unusual airplanes are his game.

“They offered the kit for $4,000, and I had $4,000 in my savings exactly, and I bought the kit which consisted of 12 gallons of glue, 144 yards of fiberglass, and two or three boxes of Styrofoam and urethane foam,” Hood adds. “I proceeded to in the course of the next couple of years, construct this airplane, and I flew it for 75 or 100 hours or so.”

Hood joined the Army National Guard in 1974, beginning his military career as a helicopter mechanic and eventually becoming a flight engineer on various military aircrafts, such as Sky Cranes, Huey and some additional fixed-wings. Closing in on his 50th birthday, Hood was deployed to Afghanistan in 2004, spending the next year flying and supervising a maintenance crew of more than 30 soldiers, performing an impressive amount of work while serving his country.

“We flew 7,000 hours, which set a record for our size unit for the time we were there in 04 and 05,” says Hood. “It was a lot of missions and a lot of work to keep those helicopters going. I was the old guy in the bunch at about 50. Most of those guys are teenagers, and they’ve got stamina, and all they need is a little direction.”

Hood retired from the National Guard soon after returning home from Afghanistan, and initially spent his time strictly on land-based activities, primarily motorcycle riding and gardening. It wasn’t long before a friend contacted Hood with a project. He needed help building an airplane – the Murphy Rebel currently sitting in his massive garage.

“I told him I had just gotten back from Afghanistan, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to fly anymore,” Hood says. “I told him to come back and ask me in a year.”

Sure enough, he came back with the intention of enlisting Hood’s help. Not ready to think about taking to the air once again, Hood jumped at the chance, helping complete the build and buying half-ownership of the plane. Eventually, Hood bought the plane outright and is back where he belongs – in the air.

“I’m just a fun flyer. I did enough hazardous flying in the military to get that out of my system,” Hood says. “When the weather is perfect, there’s no wind, and I feel good, I go for a ride.”

Features

The Pond House

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Fabled St. Clair County home now a retreat

Story by GiGi Hood
Photos by Jerry Martin

“Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly go the years!” The poignant words from Jerry Bock’s and Sheldon Harnick’s musical adaptation of Joseph Stein’s “Fiddler On The Roof” couldn’t be more true. And thanks to — or because of — today’s technological marvels, sunrises seem to run into sunsets, and very few even have time to notice the transition from one day to the next. Nothing seems to slow down, and humanity can often resemble the mouse or gerbil running on the wheel to nowhere.

Few places exist where one might find refuge from the world’s ever-quickening pace and yield to an almost forgotten chance to reflect quietly on the thoughts in their head and the matters of their heart. Such places would seem remote, far away, unbelievably expensive and most likely existent only in theory. But that is not always the case. They do exist, and one is right in the heart of St. Clair County. The Pond House, with 40 acres of land, a 3-acre stocked lake, walking trails and quiet quarters, is the perfect destination for the person seeking solace, rest and a time and place for personal reflection as well as the renewal of the body, mind and soul. Located in Pell City, just off Alabama 34, it is a peaceful utopia that is easily reachable without the need to travel great distance or spend a large amount of money to get there.

Col. Hugh Cort III, a Korean War hero, and his wife, Vi, traveled the world as he served his country. After the war, they settled in Mountain Brook when Hugh went to work at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Always busy and involved wherever they lived, Hugh and Vi both were constantly thinking about and looking for the perfect place to retire.

Their dream, not unlike that of Henry David Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond, was to find a quiet oasis with an atmosphere conducive to spiritual healing, Sabbath rest, quiet reflectivity, as well as times of personal enjoyment for both their family and friends. In tune with one another, they both wanted acreage in which to quietly meander; a peaceful setting with beautiful terrain; a chance to see and commune with wildlife and the opportunity to hear the symphony of nature’s night sounds. Blissful surroundings, a place for fishing, a canvas for water fowl and a pond that would reflect the colors of changing seasons, as well as a place to provide for the daily reflection of one’s life were each a viable part of their search.

When Hugh and Vi stumbled upon the 40 acres in St. Clair County during the early 1980s, they knew they were home. They had arrived at their dreams’ destination. Soon after, they purchased the property and began building the home that had so long existed within their minds’ eyes. With the overseeing of each and every intricacy of the process, it became apparent to both Vi and Hugh that the entry to the property was as important as the house itself. The manifestation of such thought produced a lengthy, winding lane. It allowed visitors to consciously leave the constantly spinning world at the beginning of the driveway and transcend to a world of peacefulness and rest upon entering the home that was ideally nestled among woodsy terrain and included a pond-side view.

A stone path was designed and created to run parallel to the lane and allowed for an easy walk to what would become the family cemetery, where Vi was laid to rest. Hiking trails were developed for enjoyable access to the property and all that it had to offer.

Social and athletic aspects of life were not to be overlooked at The Pond House. The Corts built a world-class croquet court just to the rear of the home. And true to the tradition of the sport, friends would gather in the spirit of competition dressed in the white sporting attire that was then appropriate for such events.

During their years of living in St. Clair County, the Corts became heavily involved with St. Peter Episcopal Church in Talladega. As their involvement and love for the church grew, a strong bond developed between them and Rev. Bob Blackwell, who then served as St. Peter’s priest.

It was during one of their times together that the Corts shared another matter of the heart with their good friend, Blackwell. They informed him that they wanted to give The Pond House, its acreage and its lake to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Their wishes were granted in 1992, when their beloved property, as well as an endowment, were given to the church and accepted by the Bishop of the Diocese of Alabama in a grand ceremony.

Today, it is the mission of The Pond House to provide a home-like setting for individuals or groups who are looking for an avenue to become disconnected from the world for either a short time or an extended stay.

“While The Pond House is an outreach ministry of Talladega’s St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, all who appreciate the standards and way of the church are invited,” Dan Miller, director of The Pond House, explained. “We welcome both lay people as well as clergy, and we encourage anyone in need of time for reflectivity, rejuvenation and respite to take advantage of the peace and quiet The Pond House and its surrounding offers at a very economical rate.”

It is the ideal setting for group meetings, as well as a facility that provides accommodations for either a one-day gathering or overnight retreats.

Originally, the house was set up to sleep 10 people. After the house was obtained by St. Peter’s, the space once used for the master bedroom was reconstructed in order to provide for a chapel. Many individuals, youth groups and vestry participants have enjoyed the wooded surroundings, as well as the screened porch and the wrap-around decks.

Having moved to another state, but certainly not forgetting his love for The Pond House, Col. Cort once again fiscally provided for additional changes that occurred during 2010. At that time, the house underwent gentle renovations in order to be able to sleep 16, to improve the functionality of the house and to provide options for limited food service. At the same time, the garage was converted to a meeting room that would accommodate up to 25 people.

The changes, growth and opportunity for serving greater numbers of people in search of spiritual, mental and physical renewal created the need for someone to orchestrate all the activities for which The Pond House could be used. As a result, Miller was hired as its first director. A low-key person, he is excited about all that The Pond House has to offer. “We want to create the atmosphere of warmth, love and enjoyment and peace,” he said. “It’s important that when our visitors come through the door they have a sense that they are at home. And one of the traditions we have to help create that sense is all visitors are greeted with the aroma and then the taste of fresh cinnamon rolls.”

While The Pond House has undergone many changes in the years since Col. and Mrs. Cort stumbled upon that glorious piece of property, some things are still the same. It is still a utopia of serenity, beauty, simplicity and tranquility. It still provides a place for spiritual, mental and physical renewal. And it still transcends the chaos of the world that exists down the lane and just outside the front gate.

Playing to a Full House

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Local Color is Springville’s ‘colorful’ music spot

Story by Mike Bolton
Photos by Jerry Martin

It’s barely dark thirty on a Friday evening, and a steady stream of vehicles with tags from Jefferson County, Shelby County, Blount County, Cullman County and other locales vie for a spot in the dimly lit parking lot of the indistinct brick building on Springville’s main thoroughfare. The occupants of the vehicles slip almost unnoticed through the side door and enter a world many Springville residents have no idea exists.

It is too obvious of a location to house something sinister, and its occupants are too nicely dressed and genteel for it to be a honky-tonk. Many a weekend passerby has seen the full parking lot across the street from Burton’s grocery store and with raised eyebrows pondered just what goes on in that place.

If the conspiracy-minded speculate something odd is going on within the building’s walls, at least give them credit for a lucky guess. Once inside, a visitor discovers a place that seems way out of place in Springville, Alabama. Step through the side door, and one might be immediately enveloped in the haunting sounds of a band from Ireland strumming Celtic music, or the toe-tapping music of a band cranking out Dixieland jazz. The next evening, a visitor might encounter the unmistakable sound of a banjo dominating a bluegrass set or watch incredulous that the twang of a bass fiddle from a folk group is shaking the liquid in their glass.

But for a few exceptions in major cities, music halls and supper clubs have pretty much gone the way of full-service gas stations. In Springville, however, Local Color is hanging in there like a rusty fish hook. For 10 years, the music hall has on weekends offered live music accompanied by a fanciful dinner. Despite the fact the business does no advertising, music lovers and a wide array of music groups find the path to the side door each weekend.

The business is operated by Springville residents Merle Dollar and Garry Burttram, who decided a decade ago to combine Burttram’s love of music and cooking and Dollar’s love of art into one of those dream ventures that for most people would stay just a dream. They both laughingly say their banks accounts attest to the fact that it is strictly a labor of love.

“We borrowed $10,000 to get started and have operated it on a shoestring budget every since,” said Dollar who served as an art teacher at Springville High School for 10 years and at Duran Junior High in Pell City for 16 years and now teaches art classes in the building. “Gary is a retired art teacher from Moody High School. He is truly an amazing person.”

Dollar says their idea was to incorporate music, art and good food in a quaint setting. The old building that once housed a boat-builder’s shop and feed store seemed like a natural. The building’s original windows have been replaced by stained glass, and memorabilia from everyone from the Beatles to Elvis adorn the walls along with Dollar’s artwork. Classic album covers and posters promoting coming attractions line the brick walls.

“We were looking for a name, and Local Color seemed like a logical choice,” she said.

Although he’s Local Color’s resident chef, and his food draws rave reviews from its patrons, Burttram insists it is all about the music for him.

“I had no choice but to love music because my parents loved music,” he said. “I can remember as a little boy hiding under the bed and watching people come to our house to listen to music. I can still remember seeing nothing but the bobby socks and penny loafers as they danced.”

Local Color has become a stopping off point for many diverse groups from Alabama, the South and even from around the world. Its reputation as a place that is a throwback in time makes musicians want to play there, band members say.

“Of all the places we have played it’s probably our favorite,” said Jerry Ryan of Three-on-a-String, the Alabama trio that has been playing across Alabama and the South for 40 years. “There’s no smoke and no TVs playing in the background like at most places today. They cater to musicians and make it a fun place to play. They know what it feels like to perform, and they enhance it.”

Ryan says music halls like Local Color have fallen by the wayside over the past several decades as television, cable and sports have become the primary entertainment. He says Local Color has survived because of attention to detail.

“It’s set up for music,” he said. “It’s one of the few places left that someone can sit right there close to the band and hear good, top-notch groups.”

There is a cover charge, and it varies according to what group performs. The entire cover charge goes to the group performing that night. Patrons may also eat dinner and can purchase wine and other alcoholic beverages.

“It is intimate, diverse, clean,” said Local Color regular Nancy Smith, a former Springville resident who now lives in Blount County. “It draws a lot of people from Birmingham. It’s just cozy and adorable.

“I bring a lot of people from Birmingham, and they are always surprised. It’s just not what you’d expect to find in little, old Springville. You can come here and listen to bluegrass, the blues, jazz and even rock and roll. I just love the diverse offerings.”

Local Color has no advertising budget and survives word of mouth and by the 1,900 e-mails it sends out each week, Dollar says. The music hall got a tremendous boost last year when the Alabama Department of Tourism and Travel, which declared 2011 “The Year of Alabama Music” promoted Local Color as a must-visit spot for live music in the state.

Local Color finds its musicians by word of mouth, too.

“I’d say about 99 percent of the groups contact us,” said Dollar on a night when a busload of patrons from Cullman had come to hear Three-on-a-String. “Four Shillings Short, a Celtic group from Ireland, was in the U.S. and heard about us and wanted to know if they could come perform.

“Another that surprises many people is Janet Hall of Fox 6 news in Birmingham. She performs twice a year. She is an incredible singer and songwriter.”

Singers and songwriters and groups, including Jeff Otwell, the Dill Pickers, Martini Shakers, Sweetwater Road, the Legendary Pineapple Skinners, Once in a Blue Moon, Steven Young (who wrote Seven Bridges Road for the Eagles) and Clair Lynch perform at Local Color annually.

Local Color’s house band is Something Else, a trio comprised of Dollar, Sylvia Waid and Peggy Jones, who have performed together for 26 years. The trio plays music from the 1920s to the 1960s and is primarily a swing and boogie group. The three ladies are, in addition to the opening group, ambassadors for Local Color and greet patrons. l

Local Color is open on Friday and Saturday nights for live music and on Sundays for lunch only. Reservations are recommended for the live performances. To make reservations, call 205-467-0334.

Features

Inventive Mind

[Show as slideshow]

Master ‘tinkerer’ turning heads around the world

Story by Mike Bolton
Photos by Jerry Martin

For those who have never met St. Clair County’s Wayne Keith, the first impression is never what was expected.

To the Mother Earth News crowd to whom he is becoming a cult hero of sorts, he doesn’t have the long hair and tie-dyed T-shirt they envisioned. To the college professors who are flying him across the U.S. to speak to distinguished panels so his vast knowledge may be harvested, he’s neither the polished engineer with a pocket protector full of slide rules or the quirky inventor that they might have imagined.

Wayne Keith is just a 63-year-old farmer in overalls who likes to tinker. “He’s just a regular guy” is the resounding response from those who meet him for the first time.

On this morning, Keith arrives at the Jack’s in Springville, and his old, wood-burning Dodge truck that is causing such a stir across the U.S. and in foreign countries doesn’t even get a second glance. An old pickup truck with three big drums in the back is as common of a sight in Alabama as Hoverounds are in south Florida.

Inside, he joins the gathering of old men who assemble daily at what they jokingly refer to as the table of knowledge. There, the old men sip coffee and feign genius as they attempt to solve the world’s problems. Keith’s presence in the group is a paradox. To the old men, he’s just Wayne, the local farmer that they have known all of their lives. He is unique, however, in that he’s actually a genius solving the world’s problems.

While the old men tell their stories, Keith doesn’t bother to explain that he has just returned from the Go-Green Festival in Missouri, where his wood-burning truck was held in great awe by patrons. Nor does he explain that he was the keynote speaker at the Environmental Protection Agency’s national convention in Atlanta. There, the good old boy armed with nothing more than a Springville High diploma was surrounded by some of the most-educated environmental scholars in the world.

“When I sit on these panels, I’m the only one that doesn’t have Ph.D at the end of my name,” he says from the log cabin he built in the woods near the St. Clair Correctional Facility in St. Clair Springs. “It’s always a little humbling.”

Before Keith got the world’s scholars attention with a truck that burns firewood instead of gas and travels 5,200 miles on a cord of firewood, he says he was just another bored high school student and an uninspired worker who was unhappy with his job for four decades.

“In high school, all I cared about was hunting, fishing and building stuff,” he said. “Going to college was never considered.

“I worked in the engineering department of a trailer manufacturing plant, and I spent five years building small trailers on my own. I was a Springville policeman for years with the K-9 unit, and then I went to St. Clair Prison as the dog trainer there. The whole time I farmed.”

The entire time he was working in a controlled environment, he yearned for something else, he says. An avid reader, he once read about vehicles from several countries being forced to run off of burning wood because gas was in short supply during World War II. That piqued his interest.

“When we had the oil crisis in the United States in 1973, and the price of gas shot up, I began reading more and more on the process of gasification (burning bio-mass to convert into a flammable vapor),” he said. “I learned everything I could find out about it.

“But in 1974, the oil embargo was lifted, and gas prices went back down. I just kind of forgot about it.”

Keith became somewhat of a noted tinkerer and inventor in the years that followed. He built a sawmill from junk steel he gathered from around his farm, and he cut wood for locals wanting to build their own homes. He estimates he has cut lumber for about 60 local homes.

He eventually cut wood from his own farm and built his own log cabin on the property. The beautiful home boasts oak floors and beams as well as numerous other woods throughout.

“No other human hands except those of me and my wife touched the cabin while we were building it,” he said. “We never bought anything to build the house except nails.

“The sawmill has operated 12 years, and there has never been a breakdown.”

Building your own home isn’t that big of a deal for many in rural Alabama, but Keith’s next invention got local tongues wagging. He took scrap metal from his farm and built what he called a “Flying Jenny.” The carnival-like ride had kids across the county clamoring for a ride, especially when they learned it would toss them in a nearby creek.

But it was Keith’s next project and the increasing cost of electricity that made local adults sit up and take notice. The 63 year-old built two windmills on his farm near his house, and the wind-driven fans supplied more than half of the electricity needs for his home. Soon after, others wanted plans, so they could build their own on their farms.

“The windmills have a generator that direct current to a battery bank,” he explained. “The battery bank has an inverter that converts the battery power into power that can run your home.”

Those windmills were destroyed in a storm earlier this year, but he plans to build them back.

Keith insists he is neither an environmental nut nor should he be a hero to the “Green” crowd, but almost reluctantly he admits he more and more is being seen as such. He insists he’s just a tinkerer who is looking for a cheaper way of getting through everyday life.

“I’m not a tree hugger,” he says with a laugh, “but if something I build allows me to do things more cheaply and it is more environmentally friendly, that’s fine, too.”

Gas prices fuel Keith’s innovation again
Rising gas prices in recent years once again piqued Keith’s interest in the wood-burning powered vehicles of World War II.

“I drew a line in the sand and decided that in 2004 if gas hit $1.50 a gallon, I was going to do something,” he said. “When gas reached that point, I started studying.”

The worldwide availability of cheap gasoline and the inefficiency of wood-burning vehicles caused the gasification process to pretty much be ignored following World War II. Keith by no means invented the process, but scholars say what he is done has perfected it to the point that it has now become viable.

What gasification does is take a bio-mass, such as dried wood, and burn it in a low-oxygen container. That converts the burning bio-mass into a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, the vapors of which are flammable. The vapors are piped from the three containers (one of which is a fuel filter made from hay) in the back of the truck to the engine where it burns like gasoline.

Auburn University and Texas A&M have run extensive tests on Keith’s trucks and have come up with startling conclusions. Since the vehicle completely burns the wood and emits no smoke, it results in 70 percent lower emissions than the total electric vehicles on the market today. The only real emissions are the ashes which are called bio-char, and they make excellent fertilizers for gardens. There is also water condensation that must be drained.

Tests show the process is 37 percent more fuel efficient than gasoline.

David L. Bransby, professor of bioenergy and bioproducts at Auburn University, says Keith is not some country bumpkin inventor. He says Keith’s near perfection of the gasification process has created interest across the U.S. and world.

“He’s an extremely smart individual,” Bransby said.

“I know of no well-qualified engineers that have been able to accomplish what he’s done. And he’s done it without any college education. His understanding of the process is exceptional.”

Keith’s plans are to work out a few more kinks in the process and then apply for patents. At that point, he plans to sell the process to a company that will convert trucks from gas to wood-burning.

Land-grant universities from across the country are interested in the process for an entirely different application. Bransby says he doesn’t see the process as being viable for most U.S. drivers but sees it as a low-cost source of energy for farms. An internal combustion engine coupled with a generator could produce electricity to power chicken houses and cattle operations and the waste-heat generated from the engine’s exhaust could supply heating needs.

Meanwhile, Keith is traveling the country speaking to universities about the process. He’s spoken in Michigan three times and in Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida and other states. He even drove one of his trucks to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where he set a world speed record for wood-burning vehicles.

“Some of these trips, as the one to Bonneville, are up to 2,000 miles round-trip,” Keith said. “You may literally see 1 million vehicles on the road on a trip like that.

“It’s pretty neat to think that you are the only one running off of wood.”