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Cooking on Palmetto Creek

In the Kitchen and by the Lake with Pam Beals and Misty Thomas

Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos by Richard Rybka

For the past 18 years, sisters-in-law Pam Beals and Misty Thomas have been in a weekly cooking school of sorts. They’re the teachers as well as the students, and most often they’re the only participants. As a result, though, their culinary skills have grown, their bond has deepened, and their binder of “keeper” recipes has continued to expand.

“We’ve pretty much had dinner together every Saturday night since 2005,” Pam said of the gatherings at her Neely Henry Lake home. “We call it our Saturday Night Supper Club.” Sometimes it’s just Pam and her husband, Tom, along with Misty, and her husband, Shane, who is Pam’s brother. Other times, the number grows to six, ten or even more.

The cottage on Neely Henry’s Palmetto Creek

The one constant, however, is that they prepare the meals together. “We have the most fun when we open a bottle of wine or bubbly, turn on the music and start cooking,” Pam said. “Sometimes I have to step in if there’s a little too much bubbly,” Tom joked.

Although Pam and Misty weren’t novices in the kitchen before they started their weekly get-togethers, they’ve both come a long way, as far as skill, confidence and mindset go. “Now I cook because I want to, not because I have to,” Pam said.

Misty and Pam have always been close, despite the 10-year age difference between them. They just haven’t always lived near each other. Pam and Shane were raised in Ashville, and Misty grew up in Steele but went to Ashville High School. By the time Misty and Shane met in the ninth grade, Pam was out of college and working.

In fact, she and Tom were living in Atlanta for the first three years of their Saturday Night Supper Club, but they all met on weekends at Pam and Shane’s mother’s cabin on Neely Henry. “In 2007, my brother and husband went to an Alabama Power auction ‘just to see how an auction works,’” Pam said with a laugh. “They both came back with property.”

Misty and Shane realized they prefer hills and farmland, so they sold their lake lot and bought a home nearby with 40 acres. They are in the process of turning it into a working farm, Moonlight Farm, where they plan to raise cattle. Pam and Tom built a 3-bedroom, 2 ½ bath cottage on their lake property lot and used it as a weekend home from 2008 until 2020 when COVID-19 hit, and they moved there permanently. “I was ready,” she said.

The cottage, which is on Neely Henry’s Palmetto Creek, was built from a Southern Living house plan. “I’ve always had a soft spot for Southern Living and all things Southern, really,” Pam said and grinned. “Anybody can copy out of Southern Living magazine.”

Dynamic duo

The magazine had a big influence on their Saturday night dinners as well. That’s where they found almost all of the recipes they tried when they first started their weekly gathering. “Southern Living got us started on this journey,” Pam said. “At first, we were intimidated by some recipes, and we didn’t even know what some of the spices were. We’d have to go buy every spice and every tool.”

It got easier, though, and they got better one dish at time. “We just got in the kitchen and started teaching ourselves,” Misty said. “Now we have all the right appliances and gadgets.”

For the most part, the meals have been successful, although there have been some bumps along the way. “We learned to read the recipe all the way through,” Pam said. “We’d get halfway through one and realize we were supposed to refrigerate it overnight. We’ve only had a catastrophe once or twice where we say, ‘I hope (the restaurant) Local Joe’s is still open.’”

Through the years they’ve tried hundreds of recipes they’ve gathered from magazines, Pinterest, and cookbooks. The first time, they follow the recipe exactly, and for some dishes, they think of how to make it better. “We’ll say, ‘Next time, let’s add this,’” Misty said.

They started keeping their favorites in a binder, which is now nearly four inches thick. “That’s where all of the ‘keepers’ go,” Pam said. “And a recipe doesn’t make the book just because we made it. Everyone has to agree that it’s a keeper.”

The fact that they try to use local ingredients whenever possible has helped the binder grow. The short ribs they use in their Short Rib Lasagna recipe, which was featured on The Today Show and grabbed Pam’s attention, come from Earnest Roots Farm in Ashville. They get tomatoes grown on Chandler Mountain from Smith Tomato in Steele to make their own tomato sauce, which they sometimes substitute for the marinara listed in the recipe.

“Every time we prepare this, we get more compliments on it,” Misty said of the Short Rib Lasagna, which has become a favorite. “You would think we’d have a lot of leftovers because it makes a lot, but there’s never anything left.”

Pam and Misty have learned over the years that their cooking styles are different. “If it’s a dessert, we’re handing that to Misty because she’s very precise,” Pam said. “I’m more of a follow the directions kind of cook and she’ll get in there and do her own thing.”

Misty agreed, adding that when she cooks on her own, “I very rarely follow a recipe. Pam will ask me what I did, and I’ll say, ‘I don’t know.’ My grandmother was an amazing cook, and that’s what she used to do, too. Pam gets mad at me, and I used to get mad at my grandmother.”

Although they are most often the ones in the kitchen, Pam and Misty sometimes turn things over to the guys. They’re in charge of the grilling, as well as low country boils, which they all love. “We do those a lot,” Misty said. “We prepare everything and hand it off to them. It’s always delicious.”

The folks enjoying the meals sometimes change as well. They are often joined by Tom’s brother, Joe, and his wife, Kathy, who live nearby on the lake. Other friends have joined in the fun, but one thing never changes. They always gather at Pam and Tom’s house to enjoy the glorious view of Neely Henry.

View for rent

When Pam and Tom built their home, they planned for it to be a peaceful weekend retreat from their busy lives in Atlanta, where they lived at the time. They were both working in the vending industry, although Tom has since retired, and were on the go a lot.

While they hired professionals to lay the foundation and handle the electricity, plumbing, framing and roofing, they did everything else themselves. The details that that make the house a home are all theirs. Tom put up the pine tongue and groove walls in the master bedroom and adjoining sun porch, and he and his brother, Mike, laid the oak tongue and groove floors throughout the home.

His brother, Joe, helped hang the kitchen cabinets while Pam handled the painting and decorating. She went to great lengths to get everything right. “We were in Destin, and I saw a house that was under construction and was painted the exact color I wanted,” she said. “No one was there so I climbed into the dumpster and found an old can of the paint. I took it to Sherwin Williams, and they matched it. It’s a dill green, and we just love it.”

After COVID hit, Pam and Tom moved in full-time. Although she continues to work from home, traveling a lot for her job with Flowers Baking Company, she started to think about what’s next. Tom retired and has begun dabbling in real estate, and Misty just retired after teaching 25 years at Albertville High School. Shane still works with Birmingham Pistol Wholesale, but he and Misty recently opened The Gun Exchange in Ashville. They also are busy working on the farm.

“Over the years, we all had conversations about what we’re going to do in retirement,” Pam said. “I decided I might give Airbnb a try. At the time, there were no Airbnbs in Ashville, so I got on the website and started playing around with a listing. I accidentally posted it, though, and the next day I woke up to a booking. I had to get myself together really quickly.”

Even though the house is their full-time home, they’ve rented it out many times since. They have an RV, and “as soon as someone books the house, we book a camping trip,” she said. “We didn’t have this in mind when we built, but it’s really turned out perfectly.”

Guests love fishing off the dock, drinking coffee on the wraparound porch, playing with the giant lawn chess set and watching outdoor movies on the screen and projector she provides. “We’ve really got it set up like a model home,” Pam said. “We pretty much just use the kitchen, master bedroom and the sunporch, and we live out of three closets” that they lock when guests come. The rest of the house is ready all the time, so they only have to get three rooms ready before guests arrive, and they head for the woods.

After traveling her whole career, she had lots of ideas about what guests need and want. All of her jobs have developed her customer service skills, and her attention to detail and love for hosting makes it the perfect fit. “It’s like I’ve been training for this my whole life,” she said.

She and Tom also own a commercial building in Gadsden and Airbnb the loft above it. They bought the lot next door to their lake cottage, and Pam said she would love to one day build another home there. “I have to keep reminding myself that I ‘m trying to retire, not build an empire,” Pam said.

Although all the changes – the cottage bookings and Misty and Shane’s work at the farm – cut into their Saturday Night Supper Club schedule, they know they’ll continue to find a way to make it work. N future recipes, they’ll soon be able to use beef raised at Moonlight Farm and vegetables from the garden Misty plans to plant.

“I’ve never had a major garden before,” Misty said, and she’s dreaming big. She plans to plant tomatoes, squash, corn, okra, beans, carrots, a variety of lettuces and strawberries. “As a child, I used to love to go out in my grandmother’s garden and pick strawberries.”

One thing is for certain, there’s still lots of cooking and Saturday night gatherings in their future. No matter what changes come, they’ll continue to do what they’ve been doing for nearly two decades. “We’ll all get in the kitchen and see how it turns out,” Pam said.

Short Rib Lasagna

Recipe of Giada de Laurentiis, shared on The Today Show

Ingredients:

Ribs

2 tablespoons olive oil
2½ pounds beef short ribs
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning
1 onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 4-inch sprigs fresh rosemary
2 cups red wine, such as Pinot Noir
2 cups beef broth

Filling Mixture

1½ cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1½ cups grated Pecorino Romano cheese (6 ounces)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (4 ounces)
1 small bunch Tuscan kale, ribs removed and chopped
¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning

Additional Ingredients

12 uncooked lasagna noodles (about 10 ounces)
Butter for greasing the baking dish
1 25-ounce jar marinara sauce
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Olive oil for drizzling

Directions:

Cook the ribs: In a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed stock pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Season the ribs with salt and pepper. Add the ribs to the pan and cook for about 4 minutes each side until brown. Remove the ribs and set aside. Add the onion, garlic and rosemary. Season with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Cook for 5 minutes until the onions are translucent and soft. Increase the heat to high. Add the wine and scrape up the brown bits that cling to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the beef broth and ribs to the pan. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook for 2½ to 3 hours until the meat is very tender. Remove the ribs and set aside until cool enough to handle, about 20 minutes. Discard the bones and cooking liquid. Using two forks, shred the meat into 2-inch-long pieces (to yield approximately 2¼ cups shredded meat).

Make the filling: In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the milk and cream to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low. Add the cheeses and whisk until melted, and the sauce is smooth. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the kale, basil and garlic. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook the pasta: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until just tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Assemble: Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400°. Butter a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish. Spread 1 cup of the marinara sauce in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Lay 3 noodles over the marinara. Spread 1/3 of the Filling Mixture evenly over the noodles. Sprinkle with a 1/3 of the shredded short ribs. Repeat with the remaining noodles and filling, making three layers of filling and ending with pasta. Spoon the remaining marinara sauce on top and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until the lasagna is heated through and the cheese is beginning to brown, about 25 minutes. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Easy Skillet Apple Pie

From Southern Living

Ingredients:

2 pounds Granny Smith apples
2 pounds Braeburn apples
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup butter
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 (14.1-oz.) package refrigerated piecrusts
1 egg white
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Butter-pecan ice cream (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Peel apples and cut into ½-inch-thick wedges. Toss apples with cinnamon and ¾ cup granulated sugar. Melt butter in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat; add brown sugar and cook, stirring constantly, 1 to 2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, and place 1 piecrust in skillet over brown sugar mixture. Spoon apple mixture over piecrust; top with remaining piecrust. Whisk egg white until foamy. Brush top of piecrust with egg white; sprinkle with 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar. Cut 4 or 5 slits in top for steam to escape.Bake at 350ºF for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Use aluminum foil to shield for last 10 minutes to prevent excessive browning, if necessary. Cool on a wire rack 30 minutes before serving. Serve with butter-pecan ice cream, if desired.

Kat Tucker

Remembering a LakeLife treasure

By Carol Pappas
Staff and contributed photos

Katheryne Anna Tucker, known better around these parts as “Kat,” was more than a business owner serving up a tasty breakfast at her restaurant, The Kitchen. She and her Kitchen became iconic, a tradition that lasted 23 years.

She passed away in May, and The Kitchen is now dark.

Kat had nurtured it into a neighborhood gathering place where she knew your name – and your order – when you walked in the door. Walk through that door once, and you were no longer a stranger, only a friend she added to her ever-growing list.

“She made people feel like they belonged, and everyone who ate at The Kitchen was treated like family,” her memoriam stated. “She remembered everything about everyone, who their family was, what they did for a living, birthdays, anniversaries and of course, what everyone liked to eat.”

I will miss my own Sunday morning Eggs Benedict, home fries and sliced tomatoes that seemed to taste like “summer tomatoes” year-round. All I had to do was call, and she would answer the phone with “Eggs Benedict, Miss Carol?”

I, like so many others, felt special because it was important to her to remember what we liked. She always had candy for the kids and treats for the dogs and tips for stories for me. It was not unusual to see her head out from the grill for a moment, walk outside to a truck to serve a four-legged friend a side of bacon while he waited on his owner to return. She was like that. All had a special place in her heart.

Regulars even had their own personalized coffee cups hanging in a place of honor. Just like their own kitchen, they would grab ‘their’ cup and ready it for a pour of Kat’s savory coffee.

Regulars always had a place to discuss issues of the day

Her giving ways went well beyond the doors of the kitchen. Charities, church activities, school functions, Animal Savers, Lions Club, Civitans, Fishes and Loaves Ministries and Scrollworks Music School, where her daughter taught, all were on the receiving end of Kat’s generosity.

Her work ethic was unparalleled. She was the ultimate multi-tasker. One only had to observe a typical breakfast rush to see evidence of that.

A veteran, she served in the U.S. Army. Sometimes, she would display that toughness no doubt learned from that military background, but that tough exterior never could disguise the big heart that resided within.

It is with much sadness to see The Kitchen’s empty restaurant and parking lot these days. It is a reminder of the loss for our community, not just in terms of a neighborhood restaurant we’d grown to love but because in so many ways the center of it made us all feel special.

The Kitchen may have gone dark, but the memory of Kat behind the grill, carrying on multiple conversations with customers while turning out one perfect breakfast after another is a light that won’t soon be dimmed.

Painting the town

Local artist adds splash of color to Coosa River Community

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka

It’s not unusual to see postage stamps celebrating art and history, but the city of Riverside has taken the celebration to a new level. Even their post office building is a piece of art, one that invites visitors to picture themselves enjoying what the city has to offer.

As the first hints of summer weather invited visitors to the lake, local artist Penny Arnold put the finishing touches on a mural that welcomes both visitors and residents to the sleepy town on the banks of Logan Martin Lake. On Highway 57, just past the fire station and City Hall, you’ll see the 40-foot mural covering the exterior side wall of the post office.

The building, which used to be a grocery store, has served as the post office since the impounding of the lake in 1964. Originally owned by former mayor W.A. “Bill” Coleman, the largely brick structure also houses Local Sister, a home décor store operated by his great granddaughter, Maddie Cochran.

Coleman’s daughter and Maddie’s grandmother, Cynthia Coleman Cochran, now owns the building and approves of the facelift the historic building has received. “I was worried at first about the bright colors,” said Cochran. “But I really like it. I think it gives us something else interesting in Riverside. And it’s fun for people to take pictures by it.”

The distinctive railroad truss bridge is the crown jewel of the panorama adorning the building’s facade. The iconic bridge was built in 1927 and was modified to accommodate the creation of the lake. It is a central part of the history of Riverside, a community that needed the railroad to support the sawmill and logging industry that drove the town’s economy in its early days.

Celebrating that landmark and the surrounding beauty of the lake is central to the goals established by the Riverside Beautification Organization (RBO), which commissioned the mural. The RBO funded the project with grant money from a local business, Charity Steel, which gives a percentage of their profits each year to a local 501(c)3 organization.

RBO President Julie Pounders says the mural is part of their mission to spruce up the city. “We’ve wanted to do a mural for a long time,” she says, adding that she is already looking for a location to add another one in the future.

This one was over seven months in the making from start date to completion. Since paint doesn’t dry well in cold weather, Arnold wasn’t able to do much in the colder months. She says the cumulative time spent on the project was about four weeks.

Arnold is a former English teacher turned art teacher, who now teaches art part time at Duran Junior High School. She has worked with stained glass, mosaic, drawing and sculpture, primarily, but had not done a mural before. She had already been refining her skills in painting by taking classes by noted local artist Nettie Bean. When she was offered the chance to paint the mural, she jumped at it. Her first step was researching the kind of paint to use on the primarily brick façade.

Acrylic masonry paint was the medium she settled on. Application was by paintbrushes and bunched up plastic bags for texture. She added a paint sprayer to her tool belt to blend the sky colors. Safety tools included a stepladder for the higher reaches and an umbrella for sun protection.

“Painting is so many layers,” Arnold explained. “We wanted it to be bold, bright and colorful. When we started, it was just swaths of color and people wondered what we were doing. As it started coming together, people began stopping to tell me how much they loved it.

“Do you know how tough it is to paint straight lines on brick?,” Arnold added. “It was a challenge in painting the railroad bridge because bricks are not a flat surface.”

In addition to the railroad bridge, the landscape art includes fishermen and kayakers, a nod to the leisure activities and tournaments popular in the area. Large, white American Lotus flowers, native to the ponds in nearby Riverside Park, are also featured in the painting. Arnold included sunset colors in the sky to capture the beauty of evening on the lake. She admits to having a bit of trouble with the osprey. “At first, it didn’t look quite right,” she said. “Julie, the RBO president, knows a lot about birds and was able to give me suggestions that helped bring it around.”

Arnold had some friends help, too. When she was initially covering the building with large areas of color, she invited friends from her church, Pell City First United Methodist, whom she called the “Joy and Color Brigade,” to come and paint the base layers.

The colorful mural has certainly given Riverside residents another reason to be proud of their city. According to Riverside Post Office employee Honey Waters, people come to her window frequently to give compliments about it. “A lot of people seem to like it. In fact,” she added, “just a couple of days ago, I watched a group of people stop and take their picture by it.”

Arnold hopes she will be able to do more murals in and around the area. “It’s given me so much joy to see the happiness it brings people in the community when they drive by. Every community deserves to have something that encourages pride in their city.” The artist has certainly delivered that.

Point Aquarius Resort

A Talladega County Logan Martin Lakeside icon before Alpine Bay

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Submitted Photos

It was a golf course, a resort, a swanky place to hold weddings, class reunions and fundraising dinners that often featured famous entertainers. It was a day-trip for horseback riding or lounging by the pool. It was a destination point for a few days of rest and relaxation, tucked away in the small town of Alpine, 10 miles southwest of Talladega.

Alpine Bay Golf Club began life as Point Aquarius in 1969. First owned by International Resorts, Inc., of Vestavia Hills, it went through several more owners and a name-change through the years as it struggled to hold onto its identity and its membership. Plagued by poor management, high-pressure sales tactics and the very seclusion that made it unique, it finally withered and died in 2014, only to be revived again two years later in a smaller but more manageable form.

“We used to book acts in the ballroom like the Swinging Medallions, the Temptations, Fahrenheit and others from the 50s and 60s,” says Stuart Brasell, who, with his business partner, Jack Graves, was food and beverage manager there from 1986-1997. “We had B.B. King once as well. It was a different time.”

Former members and employees recall gourmet meals in a multi-tiered clubhouse that included a restaurant, lounge, snack bar, game room, covered outdoor patio with a ballroom above that could seat 500.

The golfing was world-class, too, with two courses designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. One of them lasted only a year or two, but comedian Bob Hope and blind golfer Charley Boswell played a few rounds at the other, along with several NASCAR race drivers killing time during Talladega 500 weeks.

“I loved working there,” says Jeanna Carmack, bar manager at the resort from the late 80s “off and on” until 2000. “We had a lot of fun, just the atmosphere, the people you met. A lot of the NASCAR drivers would stay there in the 80s, including Darrell Waltrip, Ernie Irvan, Mark Martin’s team and Jack Roush’s team. They’d have a big charity golf tourney during NASCAR week, they’d come out and play golf and have a big dinner in the ballroom that night. Other people would come from all around the world that follow the NASCAR circuit.”

Purchased and re-named by Alpine Bay Resorts in 1982, the property at that time included the clubhouse, pro shop, Olympic-sized swimming pool with fountain and pool house, five clay tennis courts, a barn and equestrian club, putt-putt golf area, walking trails, marina with restaurant and dock storage, 60 motel units and three condominium developments. The latter were dubbed Dogwood, the Pines and East Pines. Only two of the individual units were privately owned, while the others were timeshares listed with RCI, which allowed you to trade your week at almost any timeshare resort in the world.

“Around 500 lots along Logan Martin Lake and on the interior of the resort property were part of the original 1,400-acre development,” says Brasell. “There was an RV campground that adjoined the property, too.”

Former member Gene Davis of Moody recalls that during the mid-1960s, Democratic governor contender Sen. Ryan DeGraffenried, who was later killed in a plane crash, played golf at the Charley Boswell Golf Course (Highland Park) in Birmingham along with Bob Hope and Charley Boswell. Then DeGraffenried went to Point Aquarius, as it was still called at that time. “I’m not sure about Hope, but Ryan and Charley and maybe (former football player) Johnny Musso played together there. The owners were really trying to promote and sell that property.”

Alpine Bay sold again in 1988 to National America Corporation (NACO), a part of Thousand Trails out of Gautier, MS, according to Stuart Brasell. In 1994 NACO sold the clubhouse and golf course to Joe Yarborough from Bessemer and his business partner, Pat Sanford of Childersburg. NACO, however, retained ownership of the condominiums, and still owned them when Brasell and Graves left in 1997.

Yarborough didn’t make it in the food and beverage business there and built a small pro shop and snack bar to replace the huge clubhouse. “It cost $5,500 in utilities alone each month to run the clubhouse,” Brasell says. “A consultant came in once and said it would be best if we let the tennis courts grow up and fill in the swimming pool and grow roses.”

At various times, Alpine Bay was a private resort or a semi-private resort used for many types of events. It played host to high school speech contests, state chili cook-offs, the Alabama Associated Press Broadcasters convention, the Alabama Sports Writers Association convention, the Jet Ski Nationals, Talladega College fundraisers and numerous golf tournaments.

The resort owned the equestrian club and the horses that were stabled there, according to Brasell. During the off-season, the horses were kept off-site. “They weren’t there when the barn burned in 1988,” Brasell says.

The barn wasn’t the only building to burn down.

In January 1988, two fires on New Year’s Eve destroyed four condos and a motel complex at the resort, according to brief articles in the Anniston Star and the Birmingham Post-Herald. It is unclear from the articles, however, whether it was actually the same fire both newspapers were reporting on. The Star article said a fire destroyed “apartment units 126-129 in Building Two.” The top floors were burned and the bottom floors were gutted. The Post-Herald article said a 12-unit motel complex was destroyed. “The resort has 72 motel units and 56 condominium apartments, contained in six buildings near Lake Logan Martin on the Coosa River,” the Post-Herald article stated. “The motel had been undergoing renovations.”

“Actually, the building that burned was Building 2,” says Brasell, clearing up some of the confusion. “It housed 12 motel units. They were converted from four condos. Each building had four king suites, four double queen rooms and four single queen rooms.”

In 2006, the clubhouse was in such disrepair that it was razed during a controlled burn by the Renfroe, Lanier and Munford volunteer fire departments as part of a training exercise. In a June 13, 1986, Daily Home newspaper article about the controlled burn, former resort member Helen Ruth Deese, a Talladega real estate agent, said the clubhouse had been absolutely fabulous in its heyday.

“It was the most gorgeous thing you’d ever seen,” she said in the article. “There was an open circle staircase, and a huge dining room with a stacked rock fireplace in the middle. And the food was absolutely fantastic. We had some friends who came to visit once that lived in downtown Atlanta. We took them to dinner there and then visited with them around the pool, and they just couldn’t believe there was something like this in Talladega County. He was an attorney in Atlanta, so they were used to some pretty swanky places.”

She said the dining room was “always covered up, especially for Sunday dinners,” and people came from Birmingham and Atlanta to eat there. She described lots of open balconies where they sometimes had dances, along with a big ballroom upstairs. “And there was a pro-shop downstairs that you could just drive your golf cart right up to it. In its heyday, it was just unbelievable.”

The article also mentions a swimming pool with a fountain in the middle, a large play area for children and a soft-surface tennis court that was still in use when the article was written. The clubhouse was built in 1972 but had been closed for 11 years leading up to its razing, according to the article.

“It just wasn’t worth restoring,” Yarborough, who has since died, said in the controlled burn article. “It was too big, and it was built before its time. I know of several people who have gone broke trying to run things in that building. I bought the property in 1994, and I know there have been a lot of parties and weddings there over the years, but I’m not in that kind of business, and I wasn’t going to let it break me.” He said that prior to his purchase of the property, it had been owned by Linkscorp, based in Chicago.

The original maintenance barn caught on fire and burned down somewhere along the way. Tony Parton, managing partner for the Alpine Group that now owns the golf course, believes some of the other buildings need to come down even now.

“The Pines condos are falling in and are dangerous,” he says. “They need to be burned. The current owners have been working on them but haven’t done anything with them in months. The ones by the water tower are falling in, too. People call me all the time wanting to rent them, but I don’t have anything to do with them.”

Poor management and lack of vision contributed to the demise of Alpine Bay. “Before the clubhouse was burned down, a small pro shop and snack bar were built,” says Brasell. “Without the large functions, the restaurant and lounge revenue, an enormous source of income was lost. Oddly, the barn for the equestrian club and the marina burned at different times under different ownerships.”

Clara Curtis of Sylacauga recalls working as a sales representative for timeshares in the early 1980s, when LA Marketing owned the resort. “The golf course was in full swing then,” she says. “Henry Ritchie was golf pro when I was there. It was a regular country club-like atmosphere, and you could buy shirts and souvenirs. It was a booming place. Lots of times I got there at 7 a.m. and wouldn’t leave until 2-3 a.m. because of the reunions and showers.”

Curtis started as a sales person, but when the man in charge of closings left, she got his job. “Then it started going downhill,” she says. “It was sold to another company, and they didn’t do anything with it. So, I went to conference sales: banquets, and so forth. We had a lucrative thing going on. That was just before Jack and Stuart took over.”

Curtis thinks it was the overhead of the clubhouse that did it in. “It got to where lots of folks didn’t support it, but just played golf and sat in the bar,” she recalls. “I think that’s when Joe Yarborough bought it. They split the timeshares away from country club.”

Curtis recalls entertainers like the Temptations, and others of the Motown sound. “We didn’t book shows, it was people having events there,” she says. “It was a lot of fun. You’d meet regular, everyday people that you get to know, people with summer houses, golfers. For people who lived that far out, it was nice to have someplace near they could come after work. The dads would play golf, moms would have kids at the pool. And my sister got married there!”

She says the clubhouse was a glorious facility. “You wouldn’t know you were out in the middle of nowhere. Torches were always lit at the entrance.” Those torches were enormous gas torchères at the front gate, according to Brasell. “They were beautiful but expensive,” he recalls. “It cost about $2,000 a month to keep them lit.”

Gene Davis played golf there in the 60s and had a corporate membership in the 70s. “I was a sales manager for a company out of Birmingham and when they were developing Point Aquarius, Johnny Musso was working for the people who were putting that together,” he says. “They were selling property all around the golf course. He came to our company, and I was a golfer and was interested. With my influence, our company bought into it. It cost us $5,000 for thecorporate membership. This was probably in the early 70s, probably 1973 or 1974.”

Deese did a lot of appraisal work on some of the lots in the 80s. “Often the same lot sold more than one time,” she says. “People would go look at their lot and someone would be building on it!”

Brasell claims the original Point Aquarius was built because the developers thought Alabama would get casino gambling. “That’s why the corridors of the clubhouse were so wide and the rooms so big,” he says. “It was no secret that at one time resort owners ran junkets out of Birmingham to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Ed Salem was an investor at the resort then, and Donald Trump’s wife always wanted Salem to bring Krispy Kreme donuts on those Atlantic City junkets because there weren’t any there.” He says a lot of folks got stuck on memberships, because every time ownership would change, new owners wouldn’t honor old memberships. “We made sure the resort remained public when we were there,” he says of his and Jack Graves’s managerial days.

The very location, while rural and scenic, may have contributed to the demise of the resort, too. A Golfweek article in USA Today’s sports section on Nov. 25, 2022, said, “Although a beautiful layout in a brilliant natural setting, Alpine Bay was hard to reach even from Birmingham, with a least part of the drive on winding, two-lane roads. After barely managing to stay alive for decades, it was shuttered in 2014. But the place had a loyal following.”

NACO still owned the condos when Brasell and Graves left in 1997. “They were governed by an association,” Brasell says. “Most of the amnesties were gone near the end. People finally quit paying maintenance fees, which I’m sure ended the timeshare condos.”

Current managing partner Tony Parton says all three sets of condominiums are still on the property, but they aren’t part of the 144 acres his Alpine Group owns. “Those in East Pines, they claimed they’ve restored them, but nothing has been done in months,” he says. “This was originally 1,400 acres that stretched nearly to Logan Martin Dam and included individual lots. We own just the golf course.”

Gene Davis says he has been playing golf at Alpine off and on ever since the company he worked for had a corporate membership. “I do know Tony Parton and his wife Jan, also Percy Jennings and Ray Ferguson. I’m excited they were able to do what they did by resurrecting and salvaging that old place.”

Brothers 4 Motel & Big Bull Steakhouse

Revisiting uniquely Logan Martin lodging

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Mackenzie Free
Contributed photos

Soon after the impounding of the Coosa River in 1964, the sparkling waters of the newly formed Logan Martin Lake started drawing in visitors from around the state and beyond. Fishermen and families looking for a respite from the rigors of the work-a-day world came in droves to enjoy some form of recreation along the water’s edge.

A young entrepreneur from Pell City recognized a need in this new lake community and set a plan in action to fill that need. Charles Abbott was already entrenched in the community as part owner of the local radio station, WFHK, now known as 94.1, The River. He sold his interest in the radio station and, with the help of his uncle, J.D. Abbott, secured a bank loan to build a motel and restaurant in Cropwell on the shores of the lake.

Iconic Big Bull Steakhouse neon sign in Pell City

Being a strong family man, Charles thought it only fitting to name the new venture Brothers 4 Motel after his four boys. The sign off Highway 231 featured stacked silhouettes of the four brothers, David, Dennis, Joe Paul and Danny. The family moved into the apartment at the end of the building, and the new motel welcomed its first guest in 1965.

Danny Abbott still has his silhouette from that sign as a memento of the family business he helped operate. A graduate of Pell City High School, Danny remembers the pros and cons of working at the business while being a student.

“My brothers and I worked hard on the grounds and often cleaning the rooms. Dad set up a schedule for each of us to work in the office when we weren’t in school,” Danny recalls. “I saw my buddies having fun at times that I couldn’t. But in those days, if you had a boat, which we did, you had friends. We had a lot of fun on the lake.” And so did their guests.

“Dad felt like people would come from Birmingham (when the lake opened), and they did,” adds Danny. “We had lawyers and doctors who would come every weekend and request the same room week after week.” The Columbia University rowing team came down one winter to practice. They’d put their sculling shells in and paddle to the dam and back. Danny still has the broken oar they signed and gave to his dad.

Because Charles had the foresight to have the water trenched early on for deeper water access, they were able to build docks and a beach with a swimming area. Sliding glass doors in each room looked out onto the lake and allowed each guest lake access. Several guests would leave their boats docked at Brothers 4 through the summer.

“We also had the band, Question Mark and the Mysterians, as guests one time,” Danny tells. “You remember their one big hit, ‘96 Tears’? Well, Question Mark was known for never taking off his sunglasses. I remember a day at the motel when he forgot to put them on, and his band mate had to remind him.”

When the Alabama International Motor Speedway, later named Talladega Superspeedway, opened in 1969, many more guests came to stay. The motel was filled with press staying to report on the races. Danny remembers several drivers checking in for a stay, including NASCAR legend, Tiny Lund. NASCAR Hall of Famer Buddy Baker was another frequent guest. “Buddy actually completely rebuilt his engine in the parking lot of our motel once,” Danny remembers.

Four brothers and little sister, from left, David Abbott, Dennis Abbott, Joe Paul Abbott, Danny Abbott and Jennifer Abbott Martin

The Brothers 4 Motel was also a leader when it came to telecommunications. “Our motel had the first automated phone system in the county,” says Danny. “The rooms for the motel were connected to that system so that rather than having to go through a telephone operator, we could connect a call directly from the office.”

At meal times, many of the motel guests headed next door to the Big Bull Steakhouse Restaurant. Charles never operated the restaurant he built, but leased it to Bob Mulvehill, who later bought it, along with the motel.

Locals remember the iconic neon sign featuring a charging bull, which stood outside the restaurant for just shy of 50 years. For three years, it was operated as Chilly Williy’s Sports Grill and Bar; then in 2017 it was sold and is now Courtyard Oyster Bar and Grill.

When Charles began building the motel and named it, he didn’t know he and wife, Maxine, were about to become parents again, this time to a little girl. After their daughter, Jennifer, was born, he opened a new business on the property and named it Little Sister’s Laundry.

He’d gotten tired of paying the high prices for laundry services for the motel’s linens, so he opened his own laundry facilities. Ironically, that business soon became so popular with locals and hotel guests that he didn’t have time to do the motel linens and had to send them out again.

The success of that laundry prompted him to buy three others in Eden, Pell City, and Southside.

Cleaning and servicing those laundry facilities on top of their other chores kept the four brothers busy. Jennifer, now Jennifer Martin, remembers going with the boys and helping empty the coins. “They’d set me up on top of the machines, and I’d dump the coins out,” she recalls. “Then I’d go home to roll the coins.”

When she wasn’t rolling coins, Jennifer remembers hanging out with the families who were visiting. “I’d try to join as many picnics as I could,” she laughs. “I loved fishing, and sometimes they’d take me fishing with them. I also remember eating ice out of the ice machines and getting in trouble for that.”

Jennifer also remembers enjoying the winter when the water was drawn down. “I loved to collect those shells at the bottom of the lake. We didn’t get to go to the beach, so I thought they were wonderful.”

Vintage post cards from the early days at 4 Brothers Motel on Logan Martin Lake in Cropwell

Charles Abbott sold the Brothers 4 Motel and Big Bull Steakhouse Restaurant in 1972 to Bob Mulvehill, who operated it as Big Bull Motel. Since then, it has changed hands several times. The building has remained largely unchanged and is now called Lake Front Motel.

After selling the motel, Charles kept busy with his four laundry facilities and a new antique mall he’d opened near Interstate 20. The family was stunned in 1985 when he passed away from a heart attack at 58 years old.

Their mom, Maxine, continued to run her clothing store for a number of years and lived to age 87. Two of the four brothers (Danny and Joe Paul) still live on the lake. Jennifer moved away, but recently returned.

“Perseverance was one of the greatest lessons I learned from my family and the businesses,” says Danny. For him, the lessons learned were priceless. “Watching mom and dad work together was inspirational. They never got away from it, but always worked it out.”

“Dad was a very smart guy,” says Danny. “He was very giving and did a lot for the community without making it known.” Charles Abbott served his community well as a leader and an entrepreneur.

The Brothers 4 Motel served the community well as a home away from home for some of the first visitors to Logan Martin Lake.

LakeFest

Event returns to Logan Martin Lakeside Park

It’s easy to say an event is bigger and better than ever, but organizers for Logan Martin LakeFest 2023 mean it.

When LakeFest kicks off Friday, May 12, through Sunday, May 14, at Pell City Lakeside Park, be ready for the Southeast’s largest in-water boat show featuring a host of dealers and onsite financing, row upon row of vendors, a variety of entertainment and food vendors galore.

“We’re excited,” said Eric Housh, one of the organizers of what has become a Logan Martin tradition. “Overall, this is our 13^th year,” and each year seems to get better than the one it follows.

This year is no different, and there’s a reason for that. “We listen,” he said. Community feedback helps them improve on the strong foundation already in place. “We are refocusing to a full family event – fun for the whole family.”

The outdoor festival features entertainment throughout the weekend, lake lifestyle vendors and the splash pad open for the kids for free all day on Saturday.

The event moved from its normal third weekend in May, which this year makes it fall on Mother’s Day weekend. So, organizers have added a special gift for mothers on Sunday – “Mimosas for Moms” – with 1,000 Mimosas given away courtesy of United Johnson Brothers, a major LakeFest sponsor. America’s First is providing free flowers for mothers, too.

“We have had fantastic sponsors over the years,” Housh said. “They make it happen. Without them, we wouldn’t have an event, and they come back year after year” to support it.

Judging by the size of the crowds, support from the community grows year after year, too. An estimated 45,000 to 50,000 attended the 2022 event.

From the beginning when the late Jerry Wood and others envisioned it, it has been LakeFest’s way of “welcoming people into our community and showing them Logan Martin Lake. We are very fortunate to have it here in our backyard,” Housh said.

Because of its sponsors, they have been able to keep the event free to the public. They even offer major giveaways and hourly door prizes as well as nearly nonstop entertainment and a fireworks show in honor of veterans.

“It was important to Jerry to honor veterans,” Housh said, and it has been a tradition since LakeFest’s inception. Veterans from Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home are hosted for the spectacular display in their honor that lights up the sky after dark Saturday.

Entertainment throughout the weekend features a family friendly version of the Velcro Pigmys as the headliners, a number of bands, and children’s television character, Blippy, will appear at this year’s LakeFest on Saturday.

Everyone who enters LakeFest has a chance to enter for major giveaways. “We’re super excited about the giveaways,” Housh said. A Seadoo will be given away by Munford Motorsports. LakeFest is giving away an ATV from Tracker Offroad, and Talladega Home Center will give away a Big Green Egg. “These are going to be really popular,” he added. That’s in addition to impressive door prizes – everything from kayaks and paddleboards to Tshirts and hats to boating accessories.

“We’re looking forward to it. We learn something every year,” Housh said. “Let us know what you think.” l

First Fridays

Downtown Gadsden’s signature event returns, building bigger and better traditions

Story by Carol Pappas
Submitted Photos

Just like an old friend you haven’t seen in a bit, Downtown Gadsden’s First Friday is back and ready to pick up the conversation – and the fun – where it left off in October.

First Friday returns April 7 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., building on what began with one small business in 2006 to a full-blown tradition that attracts people from multiple states from April to October each year.

“We’re looking forward to another great year,” said Downtown Gadsden Director Kay Moore. From the classic car show to the entertainment, downtown Gadsden becomes a destination point each month for this free, family event.

Broad Street, downtown’s main street, is closed to automobile traffic on First Friday, and food vendors to handle the overflow crowds set up shop in the 400 block. On 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and possibly the 600 block, entertainment plays to diverse audiences. “We have jazz, R & B, rock ‘n roll, bluegrass, line dancing, the cowboy church band – a little bit of everything for everybody,” Moore said.

If one block doesn’t quite fit your musical tastes, “just keep walking,” she suggested. “You’ll hear something you like in the next block.”

As has been the custom with First Friday, the classic car show is a huge draw that attracts thousands of car enthusiasts from all points in Alabama and throughout the Southeast. And it just keeps getting bigger and better every year.

Organizations like Main Street Alabama and Main Street America have taken notice of Gadsden’s successful efforts to bring people back to downtown. Gadsden’s many honors include Top 10 awards for its promotional activities.

“We remind people we have a good downtown,” Moore said. “It’s the heartbeat of the community,” stressing that efforts reach well beyond First Friday. Promotions and events – from a chili cookoff to a St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl – ensure that downtown merchants benefit from the increased activity drawing prospective customers their way on a regular basis.

“They like coming to our downtown,” she said.

Downtown Gadsden Inc. efforts don’t stop there, though. The organization is involved in beautifying and revitalizing the downtown area. The Pittman Theatre stage is being expanded and the ceiling is being dropped to improve its ability to host concerts.

Downtown Gadsden has entered into a public-private partnership with Walnut Gallery and Gadsden Museum of Art, leveraging its own $10,000 grant into a larger pool of $25,000 to place an 18-foot kinetic wind sculpture on the corner of 1st and Broad Streets. Just a short distance from the river and recognizing the water’s roots in Gadsden’s history, the sculpture resembles a fish with parts moving with the breeze.

“We’re really, really excited” about the sculpture coming and what the future holds for downtown, Moore said. There is no shortage of “great ideas” from the new mayor and administration that can be part of the planning that lies ahead.

“There’s a lot going on in Gadsden this year,” she added. First Friday and all the rest have been “a huge success for our downtown merchants and everybody else.”

Alpine Bay

Resurrecting the lakeside golf resort

Story Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Richard Rybka
Photos contributed by Tony Parton

Goldenrods, a golf cart and a vision. That’s what led Tony Parton down the path, literally and figuratively, to the development of Alpine Bay Golf Course.

Parton lives in East Winds, a subdivision near the course, which first opened in 1972 as Point Aquarius. It’s situated along the southern shore of Logan Martin Lake in Alpine, a small community in Talladega County. Parton was a member there for 15 years prior to its closing in 2014. But he never dreamed he would one day buy that dead course and bring it back to life. Enter the goldenrod and golf cart.

“It was January 3, 2015, and my wife, Jan, and I rode our golf cart through a path in the woods behind our house and came out on the 8th green. It was covered in goldenrods,” says Parton, who retired in 2010 from the federal prison system.

He pulled up some of the weeds and wondered what the green would look like without them. The next day, he returned on his John Deere zero-turn mower and took a crack at clearing the weeds that used to be Alabama’s state flower.

“I started in the center of the green,” he recalls. “The deck was set as high as it would go. By day’s end the mower deck was at its lowest.” What he saw after the mowing was potential. “It showed me there was hope,” he says. “I called the Realtor and made an offer. He turned it down, but I stayed in touch with him.”

An auction in June of 2015 brought a high bid of $120,000, which apparently wasn’t enough to net a sale. Parton didn’t participate in the auction but called the Realtor in August of the same year with another offer. It, too, was turned down. “Then in October, the Realtor called and asked if my offer was still good,” Parton says. “I met with him and gave him some earnest money.”

Parton didn’t want to risk his life savings, so he enlisted Mark Calhoun, a friend who lives near the course at Water’s Edge, to go in with him on the venture. They decided if they could raise half a million dollars they could open the golf course debt-free. “I figured 100 shares at $5,000 per share,” he says. “But 23 invested and we raised $525,000.” They formed an LLC, which actually owns the property. He and Mark have roughly a fourth interest each.

It took about five months to whip the course into playable shape. That included more mowing, fertilizing and getting at the roots of those pesky goldenrods. Parton and his wife, Jan, along with fellow investors Calhoun, Ray Ferguson and Percy Jennings, used claw hammers to pull them up so the weeds wouldn’t return.

That left big holes that needed to be filled. There was a large pile of sand on the property, but Parton had no way to move it. Enter Frank Hall, who wanted to put $5,000 into the venture. “He said he had something else we needed, an old tractor with a bucket and cutter and a tandem-axle (dually) truck with a dump bed,” Parton says. “We traded him two shares for them. I went to his house and got them.” They opened the gates on July 1, 2016.

A New Vision

Parton and his investors believe Alpine Bay Golf Course has a lot going for it, starting with its designer. The 6,518-yard, par-72 championship layout was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., namesake of Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. It’s a links course, meaning it does not make a turn at the clubhouse after nine holes. In fact, Number Nine is as far away from the clubhouse as you can get and still be on the property. Normally a beverage cart runs on Fridays, holidays and weekends for folks who want a break at that point.

Original plans for Point Aquarius called for two golf courses, but the second closed after a short time. Parton and his investors didn’t buy that section of land. Managing the 144-acre property they own, which includes the golf course, practice range, putting green and small clubhouse, is a full-time job for Parton, but he finds it very rewarding. “All those people who left have come back, and we’re growing,” he says. “We have about 140 members.”

The small clubhouse has a grill that sells a variety of sandwiches and a modest pro shop that has the essentials for golfers, like tees and shoes. “Shawn Reider, who worked with the previous owners, was our pro when we opened,” Parton says. “I brought him back because I knew nothing about running a golf course. He was a big asset, but he developed brain cancer and died. We don’t have a pro right now.”

Hundreds of empty lots surround the course, and they’re owned by individuals all over the United States. Only one house was ever built overlooking the greens, and it burned down. Parton would love to see someone develop those lots.

“Since we opened, neither Mark, nor me and my wife have gotten any money from it, and we’ve paid no dividends to investors,” he says. “Every penny that comes in goes right back into the course.”

Speaking of money, it costs a lot to run a golf course. It will take $750,000 to replace the outdated manual irrigation system. Last July they had to dig up the invasive Zoysia grass and put in Bermuda – at several thousand dollars per green. They bought custom-made tarps to cover all the greens during freezing weather – at $1,000 each.

“We had 18 tarps but had to order another one this morning because one was stolen last night,” Parton says on the January day of this interview. “Ironically, it won’t do anybody any good, won’t protect anything from wet weather because it has holes in it to let the water through. I wish I could be there when whoever stole it finds that out after a rainy night!” Chemicals (for fertilizer) are his biggest costs, however. “This is nothing but a glorified sod farm.”

The price of a basic membership is $1,200 per year plus a $20 cart fee per game. Unlimited membership costs $3,000 per year but includes cart fees. That isn’t enough to handle all the costs of running a golf course, though, so Parton is always brainstorming ways to bring in extra revenue.

“We have members-only events, like a (February 2023) dinner with live entertainment,” he said. “We encourage people to come and eat breakfast or lunch before tee-time, then have a snack after their game. We have lots of tournaments scheduled. I can get people together and organize events that people will enjoy.”

One of the highlights of his time redeveloping the course came in 2021 when Parton got to play golf with Robert Trent Jones Jr., eldest son of the course designer. Junior and his son, Trent, were in Birmingham for an Architectural Summit near Birmingham staged by Golfweek magazine. They were at Alpine because Golfweek scheduled a day there. This was the first time for either Jones Jr. or Trent to visit the course that Jones Sr. had designed a half-century earlier.

Ray Ferguson, one of the original investors, is maintenance supervisor. He has been involved with the golf course since it opened as Point Aquarius in 1982. “Our goal when we started was to get it up and running,” he says. “Someone had been looking at the property to put a trailer park here.”

Two shepherd-type dogs showed up one day and started following some of the golfers around. Dubbed Bogey and Birdie, they quickly became the course’s mascots. Bogey (the male) died recently, but Birdie (the female) is still there. “Bogey used to follow me home when I’d play golf. He’d stay the night, go back to the course next day,” Parton says.

Inside the clubhouse, Percy Jennings works in the modest pro shop. “I helped dig up the goldenrods with claw hammers and a 5-gallon bucket,” Jennings says. “We sat on our haunches and pulled them up.” He pauses to call out the names of the next players, telling them it’s their tee-time. He staggers the times so as not to crowd the greens.

Probably eight to 10 men are hanging out at the clubhouse today, either awaiting their turns or relaxing after their rounds. There are white-haired men in khakis, golf shirts and ball caps, some with white sunscreen on their noses, cheeks and chins, as if headed for the beach. Younger men in their 30s and 40s enjoy a beer or one of Bogey’s Grille’s famous cheeseburgers. Boisterous laughter erupts now and then, as friends tell tall tales about their golf scores.

Bogey’s is also a full-service bar with your favorite adult beverages. The Grille also serves breakfast sandwiches and plates, hot dogs, chicken fingers and chicken salad. It’s open Tuesdays through Sundays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. You don’t have to play golf to eat there, either. One of the regulars, Bill Camp, 87, drops by at least once a week for a large hamburger, even though he no longer plays. Lester Drummer is 93 and an honorary member. He may shoot a few balls, but mostly fishes in the pond at the back of the clubhouse.

Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Tony and a “few” of his friends tee off. There aren’t but 26 of them today, but on a warm and sunny summer day, that number goes out the roof. “Last week there were 36 of us,” Ray Ferguson says. “We eat and play golf.”

Parton says he doesn’t have any goals going forward, because he has already achieved what he wanted: To get the golf course opened and people playing there again. He just hopes the former “ghost town,” as he calls it, grows and people continue to enjoy it.

“God is in this,” he says. “I feel like He called us to do it, because this community (Alpine) needs this golf course.”

Remember when: Easonville

A look inside the Mansion of the Valley

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka

If walls could talk, the stately 18-room lakeside home would speak volumes. Once called the “Mansion of the Valley,” it was well known in the community of Easonville and was home, at one point or another, to several of the community’s most prominent families.

It stood in the heart of Easonville, a busy farming community on the outskirts of its big sister, “Pell City.” But by the 1950s, people in Easonville began to hear rumblings of something in the works that was to change them forever.

John Abbott with picture of grandfather’s store

In June of 1954, then President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law legislation that paved the way for dams to be built along the Coosa River for the purpose of producing hydroelectric power.

Construction on the second of those dams began in 1960 and would be called Logan Martin, after William Logan Martin Jr., a circuit court judge, Alabama’s attorney general and attorney for Alabama Power Company. The resulting impounding of the Coosa River would form the 15,263-acre reservoir known as Logan Martin Lake.

The “Mansion of the Valley” is one of just a handful of homes still in existence today that survived the onslaught of water that consumed the sleepy community of Easonville. Known now as the Maddox-Abbott home, it only survived by being moved, as many were in that day. Unlike most of the others, though, its only movement was up. To keep it safe from the coming waters, workers raised it by two and a half feet and skirted the bottom with brick.

“My earliest memory of this house was as a young kid at Easonville Methodist Church,” says current owner John Abbott. “We’d be going home, and I’d ask my dad to drive us through the driveway here because it looked haunted. I was scared to go up there on my bicycle.”

It was not haunted then, nor is it now, reports Abbott. It is, however, filled with some fairly fierce-looking creatures. An avid game hunter, Abbott has filled the rooms with trophies from his various exotic hunts and has stories to tell about each of the mounts, like the bear that leans out over the sofa in the living room, teeth bared. Coming out from behind a waterfall, that one, he tells, almost got him.

Beautiful millwork highlights the craftsmanship of the historic home. Currently configured as a four bedroom, five bath home, it features a reading room, formal living room, a formal dining room, office, kitchen and a large porch facing the waters of Logan Martin Lake.

The home is filled with antiques, which Abbott admits to having hated as a youth. “My mother made me sand them and get them ready for her to refinish,” he recalls. “It was a lot of work.”

The Maddox-Abbott home was built by William Notley Maddox for his new bride, Minerva, and was completed in 1914. It would have been completed earlier had it not been for Maddox’s generosity and his support for the local Methodist church. Those facts were revealed to Abbott many years later by a writer whose own grandfather helped Maddox build the house with pieces from a mail-order house kit.

Easonville Methodist was building a new church at that time, and Maddox, a church trustee, gave the building team all the support beams that were in his house kit. He had to reorder those beams in order to begin construction of his home.

Abbott bought the house 25 years ago, in part, because he had always been interested in its historical significance and beauty, but also because of the history it shares with his ancestors. Among the other dozen or so owners was another Abbott, a distant relative. Robert Edgar Abbott and his wife, Eliza, owned the home for several years before selling to the J.L. Manning family in 1928. Other Easonville notables to own the “Mansion of the Valley” were G.W. Ingram, Kathleen Gholston and Loyze and Mavis Roper.

Kathleen Gholston was an Easonville schoolteacher who owned the house when John Abbott was just a boy. During that time, she closed in the two sleeping porches and outfitted them as rental apartments. Abbott’s uncle, William Abbott, rented one of those apartments while building his home in Birmingham. Gholston eventually sold her home when talk of the impounding of the Coosa River began.

She sold the house to the Ropers, who continued renting it out. Among their tenants was Abbott’s uncle, Ludford Harmon. Abbott visited the mansion in the ’70s when his Uncle Ludford used it as the venue for the wedding of his daughter, Abbott’s cousin Vivian.

John Abbott has lived in the Pell City area all of his life. He has seen a lot of history being made around him. He watched with curiosity as the community of Easonville was displaced and dismantled to make way for the impending flood of water. His father, J.D. Abbott, bought the Easonville school building and tore it down to save the lumber to use in his homebuilding business.

“I was about 13 or 14 going to school in Pell City,” recalls Abbott. “I remember my dad and Charles Abbott, Pick Cosper and Booky Fraim moved a lot of dirt, building up places for Easonville homes to be moved to and to make places to build new ones.”

The home that he grew up in was moved to one of those built up lots in what is now Rock Inn Estates. His grandmother Abbott’s house was also built up to bring it high enough to withstand the rising water. The home of his maternal grandmother is no longer standing but was on the property that is now being developed as Easonville Park subdivision.

The Maddox-Abbott home is not the first meeting of the two families. The same Maddox who built the home Abbott now owns also built the cotton gin that Abbott’s uncle, Ludford Harmon, bought and had to move before the floodwaters came.

As a business owner for most of his adult life, Abbott understands the sense of loss the landowners and business owners felt when they had the choice to make of moving their buildings or selling out.

But, he adds, they did eventually see that property values went up as the water came up.

As he sits on his screened-in porch, looking out at boats going by, he knows the sacrifices that were made that allow him to continue to enjoy this old home – this piece of history that no longer sits in a valley, but that stands proudly on the edge of the waters of beautiful Logan Martin Lake.

Alabama Fishing Show

Coming to the Venue at Coosa Landing this March

Shelia Bunch’s work revolves around all things fishing, but the Tennessee businesswoman doesn’t have time to enjoy the pastime herself. She’s too busy running the show – literally.

Now Bunch, who has organized the East Tennessee Fishing Show and Expo for the past 14 years, is bringing the inaugural Alabama Fishing Show and Expo to Gadsden March 10-12 at The Venue at Coosa Landing. She’s hoping the lure of hundreds of vendors from all over the country, prizes and pro angler seminars will reel in fishing enthusiasts from all over Alabama and beyond.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for the past two or three years, but then COVID struck,” she said. “There’s no fishing shows in Alabama, there’s only boat shows,” she said. “There’s a big difference between fishing shows and boat shows.”

From fishing poles to kayaks, everything is on display

When Bunch decided to take her show on the road, she considered Georgia and South Carolina before deciding Alabama was the perfect fit. “You guys have some of the greatest fishing talent in Alabama, you’ve got great lakes, and so many great fishing tournaments,” she said.

After taking over the show that had been held in the Knoxville area for 30 years but was struggling, Bunch vowed to make it bigger and better than ever before. Since then, the Tennessee event has grown to include more than 300 vendors from all over the country and Canada. Visitors from 12 states have attended, searching for gear for both salt and freshwater fishing.

“Our goal is to provide a family-friendly fishing event for everyone who has a passion for fishing,” she said. “We focus only on the fishing industry. You’re only going to see fishing boats here. We have tackle vendors with products you’ll never be able to see anywhere else. It’s exciting to pull all this together.”

So far, local vendors, as well as some from Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Virginia, Arkansas, Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana have committed to Alabama’s show. Bunch said many more will register over the next few months, offering everything from boats, tackle, custom lures, rods, reels, clothing, electronics, fishing accessories and more.

Second Career

In her former life, Bunch owned a hair salon. “It’s a different type of work for sure,” she said before adding that she’s had plenty of experience helping out in her husband Curtis’ boat dealership. She also loves a challenge. “I’m great at planning events, I’m very organized, and I’m fair,” she said. “At first, the vendors did not like having some little short woman come in and tell everybody what to do. But over the years, I’ve been very open-minded, and they’ve really supported me.”

That’s because Bunch offers them a lot of support, as well. “I believe in small business,” she said. “We have everything from big-name vendors to small-name vendors, and some get their start at our show. I do my best to support their products because they need a chance to build their business like everybody else.”

One of Bunch’s favorite things about the show is that it gives families a chance to build memories. “We have so many people come in and say they remember when their grandfather took them to a fishing show,” she said. “If you want anything to do with fishing, this is where you come to. If you don’t fish, by the time you leave, you’ll wish you did, or you’ll have plans to start.” l