Tag: Features

Sweet success

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Hobby becoming backyard business for Riverside beekeepers

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan

What started with 3 pounds of bees in a mail-order kit a few years ago has become a thriving backyard business for one Riverside couple.

Nick and Lori Thomas, the husband-and-wife beekeeping team, work together to harvest honey, tend to their ever-expanding bee population and manage the sale of honey, bees and wax — and all in their spare time.

Graduates of Jacksonville State University, they both have jobs at the Anniston Army Depot and are busy raising a family, too.

While they are not ready to quit their day jobs, the demand for their products is growing almost faster than they can keep up with it.

“We actually sold too much honey last year,” Nick said. “We did not have enough left over for ourselves,” continued Lori.

This year, honey production is much higher, though, both because they have more hives and because each one is more productive.

“We are as excited as our repeat customers are to see the increase in the honey this year,” Nick said.

It started with old stories

Holding up her baby son, Ethan, Lori says he will make the third generation of beekeepers in the family. “First your Papa (Nick’s grandfather), then Nick and, one day, this one.”

Nick is quick to point out that his grandfather, Wayne Hare, was not exactly a “beekeeper” in the truest sense of the word, but it was his stories that captured Nick’s imagination and drove his interest in bees.

“He was not a beekeeper. He would go with his uncle to rob bee trees of honey. He would tell me stories of how they did it, how they would find bees and follow them,” Nick said. They would cut out the beehives and take the honey home.

“He really sparked my interest with those stories,” Nick said.

After they were married, Nick would often toy with the idea of keeping bees as a hobby.

“He had talked and talked about it. So one Valentine’s Day five years ago, he got his first hive,” Lori said.

Three pounds of worker bees and one queen came in the package — a simple wood frame with screens on both sides.

The project was a success from the word “go.” The first year, the colony swarmed — the process by which one hive has grown and splits into two. Often the old queen will take half the workers and look for a new home.

Nick saw the swarm in the air and employed what he thought was a bit of a wives’ tale from his grandfather — he threw his baseball cap into the flying bees.

“I don’t know why it works, maybe they think they are being attacked by birds, but you throw the hat and they cluster — land all in one spot. My grandfather told me about it, and it worked,” Nick said.

They quickly gathered up the swarm.

“One turned into two; two into four, and so on,” he said.

Currently, Nick and Lori have around 15 colonies of bees. They have had as many as 21 colonies, but they sell off the extra colonies to other beekeepers.

“One guy drove all the way up north with the bees in his car — he called to let us know he had arrived with no trouble,” Nick said.

Several years after that first batch arrived, Nick’s hobby is starting to make money for them and help pay for itself. They made a little profit last year and, with this year’s windfall of honey, they are expecting a much larger profit — unless they buy more equipment or expand their operation, Lori said.

“There are a lot of startup expenses. Bees are not cheap, especially professional honey-extraction equipment,” Nick said.

Handle with care

Not only are bees not inexpensive, they require special care and handling, both to make sure the bees thrive and to avoid stings — something that is not entirely possible for beekeepers (or magazine writers, apparently).

The Thomas’ operation produces honey, beeswax — which they sell in bars and as candles — and bee colonies called nucleus hives. So far this year, they have harvested 480 pounds (more than 40 gallons) of honey. That is a huge increase over last year’s 120 pounds.

And, though they can’t be certified organic because Nick and Lori have no way to control where the bees gather their nectar, they do manage their entire operation without harmful chemicals or artificial additives. Instead, they find natural ways to control pests, like using cinnamon to remove parasites.

Likewise, the Thomases double filter their honey but don’t pasteurize it like big commercial distributors do, a process which both of them say destroys many of the beneficial and homeopathic properties of the honey. They also say it is not necessary. Honey is, by its very nature, mostly sterile and has a near-infinite shelf life.

“People say our honey tastes better than the big commercial brands, which are so over filtered, over pasteurized, over processed,” Lori said.

Even their wax is just that, beeswax — no additives or scents. “It just smells like honey,” she said.

What Nick says he enjoys most are caring for the bees and making sure the colonies are healthy and watching for swarming, which is important to prevent because you not only lose bees, they eat lots of honey before leaving. He also enjoys harvesting the honey, but says that can be a lot of work, often requiring long stretches in a hot bee-suit.

Before approaching the hives stacked across the back of their property, Nick and Lori suit up in outfits that cover them head to toe, with screens around their head so they can see out, but the bees can’t get in.

Nick says stings happen, but not nearly as often as you would expect from someone who handles thousands of bees every day. Part of that is because Nick and Lori keep Italian bees, which are more docile than other breeds.

Carrying a smoker — a can with burning leaves or grass — they approach the hives, opening the sections where the bees build combs to store honey, not the areas where the bees actually build cells for breeding. Then, they remove the racks.

Each rack contains honeycomb covered in wax caps, every cell full of honey. They gently remove the bees and store the racks in a case to carry back to the garage where their equipment is kept. The whole process takes only a few minutes.

Once back in the garage, Nick or Lori quickly closes the garage door — if they did not, the bees would follow the honey inside.

“One time, I had been working in here and had left the door open after draining most of the honey out of the extractor — there was maybe an inch in the bottom. I came back down and the garage was full of bees. They were everywhere,” Nick said.

“I learned then what to do when your garage is full of bees. I left the top off the extractor and closed the garage door. The bees all went in and ate the honey left in the bottom. Once they got their fill, I opened the door and they all flew directly back to the hive. They were all gone.”

After hanging up their suits, Nick and Lori set up kind of an assembly line, with Lori removing the racks from the case and giving them to Nick, who uses a special tool to quickly scrape the caps off the honey comb, exposing the honey.

He places the racks in an extractor, a large steel centrifuge that literally spins the honey out of the racks. From there, it is poured out of a spout through the filters and into a container to be bottled.

And, though they will sell jars with the wax comb in them by special order, generally the combs stay in the racks, which are taken back out to the hives to be refilled by the bees.

It takes a lot of work and energy for the bees to rebuild the combs if they are removed, so leaving them in means more productive hives and healthier bees. And Lori and Nick both point out that, like any other animal they keep, the health of their bees is important to them.

The honey is bottled and sold, either in small parcels or in bulk, to their customers. The wax caps are melted in a double boiler and poured into molds, made into candles or just as bars of wax, and sold.

So far, they sell out to their customers and don’t have enough to put in stores, but Nick says they would like one day to have their products sold off of shelves next to other brands.

“Right now, many of our customers buy in bulk. We have one lady who bakes with it, so she buys a lot,” Nick said.

Beyond their backyard

Admittedly, Nick and Lori have almost the ideal location for beekeeping — they originally bought enough land for their horses — and have taken time to learn about the process, using that knowledge to continually improve their techniques.

Lori said one thing they had to do was dig a pond on the property. They have a fountain out in front of the house, and bees, like everything else, need water. The fountain became their favorite source.

“It was like a bee highway between the hives and the fountain. Every time you would walk out there, you were getting bumped by bees going back and forth.” It was time for Nick to dig a pond in the back, she said.

In addition to their land and the pond, Nick says they are surrounded by about a hundred acres of diverse woodland, which is the perfect environment for the bees to forage in.

Lori has a degree in chemistry, which comes in handy with the business, and Nick is continually working to broaden his knowledge — and they both want to share their knowledge and experience with others.

About a year ago, Nick and Lori formed the St. Clair County Beekeepers Association, a new organization for the county. An affiliate of the Alabama Beekeepers Association, they meet with other beekeepers from around the area to share their knowledge and experience.

And that process is a two-way street. Nick, who is the president of the association, prepares presentations for the meetings, often expanding his own information resources in the process. In return, they learn additional trade secrets from veteran beekeepers.

And, like their beekeeping operation, the association has been a success. In operation since last August, the St. Clair Beekeepers Association now boasts around 30 members.

Nick and Lori also raise and show exotic animals — everything from snakes to African pygmy hedgehogs. To learn more about the Thomas’ operation, visit their website, www.thomas-farm.com. To learn more about the St. Clair County Beekeepers Association, www.sccba.net.

Editor’s note: Michael Callahan gets a special nod for shooting these photos without a bee suit or netting.

Features

Ralph Compton

Western Author, Odenville Icon

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

It was a simple question, really: “Can you write a western?”

The reply was equally without complexities: “I said I didn’t know, but I’d like to try.”

And beginning at age 56, Ralph Compton did indeed write a Western — 23 of them in just eight years — and is mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey and Larry McMurtry.

But this story didn’t begin with the birth of an author, it began with the birth of a baby boy in a little log home with a dirt floor. “You walked three miles along the Seaboard Railroad track, climbed a cut bank and trudged another three miles through the woods,” he wrote in his autobiography.

Townfolks and passersby on US 411 who see the sign that reads, “Home of Ralph Compton,” know the destination point of that long ago six-mile trek — Odenville, Alabama.

Born April 11, 1934, Compton says he missed the worst of the depression. “We were in the midst of one of our own when the rest of the country caught up to us. It seemed like we all started poor and went downhill from there,” he wrote.

His mother had a sixth grade education; his father, fifth grade. “By the time FDR’s ‘team of mules, seed and fertilizer’ stake got to us, there were no mules.” His father secured a team of oxen, seed and fertilizer and planted a crop. “In his best year, he made almost enough to repay what he owed the government.”

Compton grew up on Hannah Mountain near Lynch Lake and graduated from St. Clair County High School in Odenville, no small feat for the boy with less than meager means. “In those days, ‘welfare’ families were not looked on with favor,” he said. “There were four of us, and we received the staggering sum of $39 a month. I owe my high school graduation to understanding teachers who provided odd jobs so that I had the bare necessities.”

He singled out his high school principal, Nancy Wilson, who encouraged him not only to read, but to remember what he read. “Because I did read, she moved me ahead, encouraging me to read literature and history more advanced than my grade required. Before my graduation, I knew I wanted to write, although I wasn’t sure what.”

It would be more than three decades before he settled that question. The Goodnight Trail launched his western novels career, selling more than 1 million copies upon its release. The book’s dedication was to the spark that ignited his passion for literature. “To Nancy Wilson, principal of the St. Clair County High School in 1954,” it says.

Ten more “trail series” books would follow, along with a dozen other western novels. Six Guns and Double Eagles, The California Trail and the Shawnee Trail were in the top 50 most requested western novels the year before he died, according to a Birmingham News story on his death in 1998. The story quotes his brother, Bill, who talked of his songwriting days in Nashville. “He played guitar and liked bluegrass music.”

In his autobiography, Compton writes about Bill. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, Compton said he returned home to find his brother “an accomplished guitarist and singer, and the two of us set out to make big tracks.”

They played legion halls, armories, schools and radio stations. “Most little stations provided time for free on Saturday afternoon, usually 15 to 30 minutes for those enthusiastic enough (or dumb enough) to donate their ‘talent’ for the exposure,” Compton recalled. One time they were on three stations — live — and they raced from one station to the other just for the chance to play.

compton-country-boy-eddie — Bill Compton on the Country Boy Eddie Show

They split up in 1960, and Bill went on to play with Country Boy Eddie, a popular television show in Birmingham and in Alabama. Ralph headed north to Nashville with hopes of becoming a songwriter.

“Nashville wasted no time in giving me a hard way to go.” He and a friend eventually started a tabloid magazine, The Rhinestone Rooster. “We went broke, were able to borrow some additional money, and went broke again,” he wrote.

But he saved the logo and used it as a record label in producing recording sessions with limited success. He moved from one odd job to another before finally calling an end to his songwriting career. He had begun a novel in 1989 on a subject he knew all too well — growing up in the south during the Depression.

When he showed it to a literary agent, he acknowledged he had potential and said, “I like it, but I can’t sell it. Can you write a western?”

And that single, simple question launched a stellar career as a bestselling novelist with St. Martin’s Press and Signet Publishers, his historical accuracy becoming his trademark.

He passed away at age 64 of cancer. But his works and his words are his legacy. In his hometown of Odenville the pride of what he accomplished runs a little deeper. A display case at the library features his cowboy boots and a cowboy hat he donated. Nearby are rows and rows of his books, the most popular western author by far at his hometown library, Librarian Betty Corley says. “L’Amour is very famous, very well known, but they still get Compton.”

Outside, the library’s western themed sign, too, proclaims his roots. Perhaps it is because his own story is as inspiring as his westerns are captivating. From dirt floor beginnings to bestselling author certainly has the makings of a story to be told and retold.

In a 1993 issue of The Roundup for Western Writers of America, he recounted the question that changed his life. “Can you write a western? I could, and thank God, I did. My one regret is that I lacked the confidence and courage to do it sooner.

“While the Old West lives only in the pages of history, I believe there’s something within each of us that longs for those days when there was yet another frontier to be conquered, another mountain to cross, and the thrill of the unknown. I believe the Old West will live forever — perhaps not in Hollywood, but in the hearts and minds of men and women who refuse to let it die.”

And the memory of Ralph Compton lives on in the town proud to call him its native son.

Features

A common past

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St. Clair Springs log homes

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

More than 100 years ago, the Jones Road homes of Mike and Cathy Harris and Jimmy Calvert on Jones Road began as simple, four-room log cabins. They were part of the same piece of property, the latter housing the servants’ quarters for the former. Additions and renovations have saved these relics of the past from the ravages of time and neglect, while the personal touches of current and former owners have turned them into modern-day cottages that retain much of their rusticity.

“It feels like half my house is old, half is new, but we don’t know when each was built,” says Cathy Harris, who moved here with husband, Mike, in June 2012 from Raleigh, N.C.

That description fits both the Harris home and the Calvert home. The split personality of the houses is more evident in the Harris home, however, especially from the outside. A stone facade covers the newer half, while the log section, with its tan chinking, dominates the other. Where the two are joined inside, exposed logs remind the owners of the house’s humble beginnings.

“Every floor in this house is (made of) a different kind of wood,” says Cathy Harris. “I think every owner put his own stamp on this house.”

Their stamp happens to be a combination of rustic furnishings from a mountain cabin they used to own and from their Raleigh residence. In the dining area, a faux antler chandelier hangs over a huge round table that belonged to Cathy’s mother. The table is topped by a twig basket on a large lazy Susan, and is surrounded by old hickory chairs.

“I’d rather be outside than inside, so everything is decorated outdoorsy,” Cathy explains as she leads a tour of the house. The master bedroom has prints of green ferns, either elk or deer antlers (she’s not sure which) hanging over the bed, with a rustic wooden bench at its foot. The Great Room has leather sofas and a long, low, wooden coffee table. Coming out of the kitchen on the opposite side of the dining room, the original log section of the house begins. “I call this my living room because it’s a little more formal than the Great Room,” Cathy says.

A stone fireplace and a red front door dominate the room, but the deer head over the fireplace, like the antlers throughout, was purchased, not shot. “We don’t hunt,” Cathy says. “I bought that deer head at an antique store for $40.” More antlers, prints of dogs and horses, a rustic wooden coffee and an end table share space with a Persian rug. A sheep-horn lamp from the old Rich’s store in Atlanta is draped with the halters the grown Harris children used with their childhood ponies. More antlers adorn the walls and built-in bookcases in this room.

But the most striking feature of the living room is the wooden catwalk high above. Steep log steps lead up to the catwalk, which has a small loft at each end that the Harrises use for storage. Arthur Weeks, the late Birmingham artist who owned the original L-shaped house in the 1980s, used both areas as bedrooms, even though their peaks only allow standing room in their centers. It was Weeks who added the skylight that brightens the room, but the catwalk and lofts are original to the house.

Off one side of the living room is a small area with a log ceiling that Mike uses as his office, while off the other side are two small bedrooms and two bathrooms. The ceilings are low and the floors are sloping in these rooms, but a structural engineer pronounced the house safe. The sloping is due to settling. These bedrooms were carpeted and decorated by the former owner, who painted the log walls in one of them. “I don’t know what’s under the carpet,” Cathy confesses.

The Harrises have done no remodeling inside the home, other than painting some of the rooms and adding granite countertops in the kitchen. Outside, however, they literally hit the ground running from the moment they arrived.

Their first project was to take down a huge tree house in the backyard and their pond’s boat house that was falling in. Most of the gardens were put in by Weeks, but they put up new fencing, limbed some trees, planted grass and cleaned up outside. Next, they screened in the open porch at the rear and built a pool equipment house. The swimming pool was already there. A real working well sits unused in a side yard.

“When the weather is nice, we live on the screened porch,” says Cathy. “We need to put a TV out there, we use it so much.”

Arthur Weeks disassembled a small log barn that was behind what is now Jimmy Calvert’s house, just up the road, then reassembled it to one side of the house and used it as his studio. Now a small, two-level apartment rented by Jimbo Bowers, the former barn also has a shed roof that shields lawn equipment from the elements.

Jimmy Calvert says the original 800-square-foot log portion of his 2,900 square-foot house probably was built in the late 1800s, while the two-story cottage-style addition was built by former owners Donnie Joe and Kim Kirkland in 1998-99. The four-room log cabin has three fireplaces around one central chimney, a common arrangement for the time in which it was built.

“It was an emotional buy,” Calvert says about his purchase.

An attorney with an office in Birmingham and Springville, he moved from Birmingham in 2004. His master bedroom was in the original log cabin while renovating the addition, which now has his living room, master bedroom and bath downstairs, two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. He has spent six figures over the course of eight years, and most of his free time during 2009 and 2010, restoring the place.

“There’s not an inch of this place that I haven’t restored,” Calvert says.

With the help of a friend, Walker Peerson, who was experienced in home construction and renovation, Calvert ripped out the floors down to the dirt in the original kitchen and dining room. That’s when he discovered that the logs underneath were laid out in a hub-and-spoke fashion, with the fireplace as the hub. He had to replace many of the floor joists and put down new heart pine floors. He removed the tile covering all the stone fireplaces and rebuilt the hearths. He tore out all the replacement windows and rebuilt their frames, putting plate glass in several rooms while keeping the one window that was original to the house. It’s now in his home office. He re-wired and re-plumbed the log cabin, too.

“A lot of the chinking was coming out, so I scraped out those places and re-caulked them, using a product called Perma-Chink,” Calvert says. “Then I painted the chinking an antique white.”

He removed the walls of the hallway between what was the original kitchen and a bedroom in the log section, then built a modern kitchen with pine countertops and stainless-steel appliances in the former bedroom. He and Peerson then built a 3-foot by 6-foot picture window at one end, overlooking the backyard. The original kitchen is now his dining room. His home office is in what used to be a second log bedroom.

“I’m 80 percent done with what I want to do here,” Calvert says. “What’s left is cosmetic, little things like knobs on the kitchen cabinets.”

He also rebuilt an old skinning shed outside, turning it into an air conditioned workshop and dog house for his two dogs. A 350-year-old oak tree lends shade to the screened porch on the front of the house. The concrete floor of the porch is patchy, but Calvert plans to leave it that way to maintain its rustic appearance. He also built a new deck on the back of the house and took down some old, dilapidated chicken houses.

Calvert has been told that the cabin was re-chinked in 1937 using mud from the pond behind his house. Initials and a date that were written in the chinking on one side of the house prove that point.

“Jones Road was the original road from Springville to Ashville,” Calvert says. “You came up Highway 11, and right onto Jones Springs Road. Then they built I-59 and cut off this road, which now dead ends next to my property. Alabama 23 now goes over I-59 from Springville to St. Clair Springs and up to Ashville.”

Features

Kickstand Up!

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Pet passenger an
easy rider in St. Clair

Story by Jerry Smith
Photos by Jerry Martin

Mike Enoch enjoys few things more than a leisurely motorcycle ride with his friend Katt on the seat behind him. That doesn’t sound unusual for a Southern boy on a warm summer day, until you realize that Katt is actually a large brown dog. For Mike and Katt, it’s a wondrous association, both enjoying each other’s company in a unique way, with lots of attention from bystanders.

Dogs on bikes are not new, but they’re usually just shivery Chihuahuas or yapping Yorkies stuffed into a saddle bag or handlebar pouch. Katt, however, is full-sized — a real man’s dog with no self-esteem issues, and she rides on a seat like the rest of us. And besides, it’s safer and more comfortable than riding in the back of a pickup truck.

Pell City folks are becoming accustomed to seeing this eye-catching duo on city streets, but first-timers always do a double-take when passing them on the road or seeing Mike’s bike parked at a local store, with Katt standing guard while he’s inside taking care of business.

Katt is a three year old female pit bull/mastiff mix, so no other security system is needed for their motorcycle. Katt’s domain is a special shelter Mike fabricated to fit over the rear seat, which also serves as a framework for a carrier that holds camping and fishing equipment. She’s a well-behaved dog with a warm, salival persona, but it’s probably not a good idea to mess with her bike.

Mike raised Katt from a puppy. He explains that her name came from the way she scampered and played, more like a kitten than a puppy. As she matured, the name Cat became a bit unseemly for such a noble canine, so he morphed it into Katt instead.

They ride a dark blue 2001 Honda Shadow 1100cc Sabre. This model has ample power, yet is light and agile enough to get them around on two-lane country roads as they explore St. Clair and its environs. The Shadow is his first bike, and Mike has put more than 27,000 miles on it, mostly before Katt started insisting on going along.

He explains that once Katt has sensed he is going somewhere, she jumps up on the bike seat and uses all her doggie wiles to make him feel bad for leaving her behind. After a few such drama sessions, Mike relented and built his friend a special carrier to provide safety and shelter.

It allows her to watch the road ahead from either side, with her snout usually nestled against his leg or waist.

When stopped, Katt absolutely will not jump off the bike unless Mike gives her spoken permission. Mike claims he’s tested her several times, finding that nothing can entice her down, even for hours at a time. In fact, she often sleeps on the bike when they’re at home.

During an interview session at Pell City’s Lakeside Park, Katt sat politely and patiently on her padded perch while we talked, but it soon became clear from her body language that she had doggie needs. Mike finally relented, ordered her down, and she hit the ground running. After a few laps around the parking lot and nearby woods, all within a perimeter established by Mike’s voice commands, she obediently returned to her post.

Mike says Katt already has some 1,000-plus miles under her, uh…collar, with no mishaps or problems at all, and he looks forward to lots more pleasant mileage as they run errands, explore this part of the state, and venture out on fishing and wilderness camping trips.

They’ve taken a few longer treks together, such as Stone Mountain, Buck’s Pocket and a campground in Tennessee, but Mike says the norm is less than a hundred miles each way, with several scenic and pit stops so neither man nor pet becomes uncomfortable.

At age 51, Mike is the owner-operator of Carpet Solutions Cleaning Co., a local firm specializing in cleaning and treating commercial carpets. It’s hard work, and Mike performs it with due diligence, so having a means of rest and recreation is a necessity.

Both he and Katt enjoy the natural camaraderie of a man and his dog, along with a growing notability among St. Clair folks. In fact, the interview was interrupted several times by curious park visitors, all with basically the same questions, as well as several honks from passing cars.

So what’s in the future for the travel team of Honda, Mike and Katt? Mike says he may try to fit her with goggles (Doggles?) to protect her eyes, and possibly even a doggie helmet, as they expand their travel radius to include more vacations and camping expeditions.

Mike also wants to breed her to a full-blooded bull mastiff at least once before she’s neutered, to produce a dog that’s slightly larger than Katt. If her cool demeanor and powerful physique prevails, those pups should make great pets and watchdogs.

Does Mike plan to sell his Honda anytime soon? “Nope, she’d probably leave me and go with the bike, and I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”

Features

Garry House Cafe

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It’s about the history; it’s about the fine food

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

Mark and Melissa Brooks drove past the old house with the “For Sale” sign on a corner of Pell City’s downtown First Avenue a few times before they ventured inside.

They kept looking at the house with the long, covered front porch and an unmistakable character of days gone by that beckoned them inside.

“It would make such a good café with that big veranda out front,” Melissa recalls. So they stepped inside Pell City’s second oldest home to see. “When we looked at the front room, we both looked at each other and knew we were going to buy the house.”

By Halloween 2012, the same day Mark retired from the U.S. Navy as a Captain one year before, they closed on the house and began fulfilling Melissa’s dream of one day having a café. In March, it opened as The Garry House Café, named for the family who built it in the early 1900s.

It was owned by Solomon Garry, a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant who moved to Pell City. His son, Jake, owned a mule and cart business in the 1920s. Not much more is known about the house’s history other than it is the second oldest — behind the Riser House, they say, encouraging anyone who has more history about it to share.

Australian-born Melissa talks about the house, not as a thing, but as a person. After months-long renovation by the Brooks, their work breathed new life into it. “Now she will have been here longer than she would have been.”

It began with a vision to “revive this grand old house,” says Mark. “We wanted to bring to downtown what it doesn’t have. Then she told me she always wanted to do a café,” and that was it. The journey to restore it began. When he was commander of the jet training air wing, Mark says he and Melissa hosted “pre-Winging socials” at their quarters on the base — a similar house from the same era as their new find in Pell City. At the socials, they offered quite a fare for families of pilots about to get their gold wings to be fighter pilots. They came from around the country and throughout the world.

“Melissa is a phenomenal cook,” says Mark. “She did all the cooking. We hosted more than 2,000 people over two years.”

That culinary precursor led the couple to The Garry House, Mark says of the day they made the decision to buy the house. “Let’s do what you always wanted to do,” he told her. “So here we are.”

A row of Garry House flags, seemingly proclaiming its rebirth, line the edge of the rooftop, immediately catching the attention of passersby. A white picket fence encases the front yard and walkway to a wooden staircase that ascends to a step back in time.

Intimate, white-tablecloth seating on the covered front porch gives diners an al fresco alternative to their meals. Inside lie two large front rooms with bay windows, oversized artwork by Nettie Bean adorning the walls and hinting at just how special this place is. Hardwood floors, white tablecloths and high-backed, black leather chairs only add to the richness and warmth of the home.

“Toly,” a 2-foot wooden statue stationed at the top of the hallway says it all through the sign he holds: “Welcome to The Garry House.” Toly was a find from a famous restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, Tolarno’s Bistro, the first of its kind in the arts district of the city.

The Brooks are hoping to have their own “first” in Pell City, and as you make your way through, it is easy to envision it. Just down the hallway are two more dining rooms — one with more of a female style; the other a bit more masculine.

The “more girl-like room” features monthly exhibits of artwork from the Southern Cultural Arts Foundation, a side bay window ushering in plenty of light. Melissa suggests this room for ladies luncheons, afternoon teas, bridge and other special events. The “guy-like room” is dressed in black and white — from the curtains to the tables and chairs to the black and white photographs by Wallace Bromberg that line its walls. It is perfect for lunch business meetings, she says.

While the whole café can seat 64, it can all be converted for use as a stand-up reception.

It is obvious the ideas, the planning and the vision are well thought out from one end of the home to the other.

The Garry House’s initial plans are to be open for breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday, offering a diverse menu that is not available elsewhere in the region.

In the land of ‘meat ’n three,’ The Garry House Café offers options: “Fresh, local, nutritious, delicious” is its vision. “Everything is made from scratch. No deep fried,” Melissa says. “And we are using as much local as we can. Everything is fresh, fresh.”

Homemade granola, fresh fruit, caprese salad, signature salad with a homemade honey mustard dressing are but a few of the items you will find on the menu. The Garry House Café salad dressings and granola are packaged and available for sale to take home.

“Aussie Meat Pies” are a salute to her heritage, but she “Americanizes” what is traditionally seasoned ground beef in a pastry case. She makes hers into taste-tempting treats — the filling becoming beef and mushroom, boeuf burgundy or other possibilities only limited by the chef’s imagination.

In the states, Mark explains, you might order a hotdog. In Australia, its counterpart is a meat pie. Adding a quick history lesson, Melissa says the meat pie tradition has English roots, where coal miners used them as hand warmers in their pockets and then ate them at lunch.

Breakfast pies include bacon and egg, or a zesty sausage and egg, always a favorite, or perhaps, a sausage roll.

In the future, the couple plans two special dinners per month — pre-set meals with wine pairings and tastings. “We may even have cooking classes,” she says, noting that the goal of The Garry House Café is to be more than a restaurant. It is a place for special events as well.

With Cathy Powlas assisting Melissa with the cooking, Mark handling administration and maintenance, his sister, Allison Middlebrook, as front manager, and a top-notch wait staff eager to serve, The Garry House has the makings of something very special for Pell City and the region.

And that is just what the Brooks intend. “Unique, dignified, relaxing,” Melissa says. Dining should be an experience — an event rather than simply a meal — and the Brooks aim to make that their daily special.

Features

White’s Mountain

Music’s spirit alive

Story by Samantha Corona
Photos by Jerry Martin
Submitted photos

Up on the mountain top in the early spring, it’s quiet.

But inside the house at the bottom of White’s Mountain Lane, the spirit of bluegrass music is alive and well.

Pictures cover the dining room table, and there are many more where those came from. Each snapshot bears a special memory, a familiar group of faces and a glimpse of what happens on White’s Mountain when the weather warms up and the pickers start strumming.

“It is definitely a love,” said Tommy White, namesake and owner of the park called White’s Mountain.

That love White talks so passionately about is not only for a style of music, but for the weekend-long event he and his wife, Sybil, host twice a year just up the hill from their St. Clair Springs home – The White’s Mountain Festival “Bluegrass on the Mountain.”

“There is no profit, and sometimes we don’t break even,” White said. “We do it each time because we enjoy it and because there is something special about bluegrass.”

White started playing his own rendition of bluegrass music years ago after he picked up a banjo. He served as a captain in the U.S. Army and after some time, told Sybil he was going to pursue a pilot’s license.

“She said, ‘Oh no, you’re not,’” White laughed. “So, I took the money I was going to use for my license and bought a banjo. I quickly realized that I couldn’t sing and play the banjo, so I traded it in for a guitar, and the rest is history.”

Through her family, Sybil has been around the bluegrass-style music throughout her life. She picked up her bass, and together with friends, weekly jam sessions turned into playing shows and a $500 prize from a bluegrass band contest.

As the number of players outgrew the house, White said some friends suggested that he and Sybil make an outdoor space by opening up the cow pasture area at the top of their hill. The Whites looked into what it would take, and started to work.

“We built the entire park,” White said. “She planted every shrub and I dug every hole. We built everything up there.”

The park features a main stage that plays host to bands from surrounding cities in Alabama, as well as Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida.

It faces an open space that White reconstructed from a ravine into an amphitheater-style area that allows music lovers to bring their own chairs and blankets and be comfortable while enjoying the weekend entertainment.

Space at the very top of the mountain is reserved for those who want to set up campers and tents to stay through the weekend, although White said those spots are often limited.

There is also a concession area and picnic tables for guests to share snacks and conversations, and an old-time inspired General Store that houses White’s extensive antique collectables.

“It is designed for people who love the old traditional music and the times when you played with your family and friends and enjoyed the company,” White said. “Our friends and neighbors all perform, and we also enjoy meeting new people who want to be a part of it.”

Through word of mouth, the White’s Mountain Bluegrass Festival has grown from the once friends-only jam sessions to the weekend-long celebrations of music and history each June and October. White said performers often contact him and Sybil for the chance to play at the festival, and they’ve had guests visit from as far away as Europe and India.

Last year’s October festival drew 300-400 guests to the mountain, the usual attendance average for each event. And in recent years, it was nominated for an Alabama Tourism Award from the St. Clair County Tourism Department.

“Anything we can do to show off our home and what a great place St. Clair County is, that’s what we want to do,” White said.

In the fall, the Whites also hold an annual event called “Chimney Corner.” Families and guests are welcome to experience the fall setting on the mountain, take rides on the two-car train and get hands-on into some activities from the early days, including making maple syrup and hominy, blacksmithing, corn shelling and pumpkin picking in the White’s own pumpkin patch.

Guests can tour the old General store and see the old mailboxes from the early St. Clair Springs post office and a fully restored (and working) wood-burning stove.

White has put together a collection that takes you back in time to see everything from oil lanterns to separators that divided cream from milk, the first churners, coffee grinders, flour sifters and even gourd spoons that helped in gathering water from the wells and streams.

“In those days, there was no Wal-Mart on every corner or open around the clock. If you didn’t make it, then you didn’t have it. This was a means of survival for many people,” White said. “We try to keep some of those processes visible because a lot of people have never seen how some of these things were done.”

Tommy and Sybil are definitely proud of that history and enjoy being able to share it with others through their knowledge, their mementos and the music they believe is the soundtrack to it all.

“There’s definitely a spirit about it. Something about when you get with friends and play, and it all turns out right. You feel like you’re doing something that your ancestors did,” White said.

“You tell me that there is nothing spiritual about that.”

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