Blueberries, Water Skiing and Live Music: Inside Weeks Bay Plantation as It Hits the Market

Anyone who turns off U.S. 98 expecting to find a white-columned antebellum mansion at Weeks Bay Plantation is in for a surprise. The scenic property just west of Magnolia Springs has never really been a plantation in the traditional sense. Instead, over the past quarter-century it has been a tree farm, a berry farm, a concert venue, a set of vacation rentals and, above all, the private water-ski paradise of owner Tynes Stringfellow. Now the property is on the market, though its owners plan to hang on to a piece of it.

Drawn South by the Rivers

Stringfellow, a native of Mountain Brook, Alabama, took ownership of the land in 2000, and one of the reasons was his lifelong love of water skiing. Along with acres of farmland, the property holds a 10-acre spring-fed lake that he says is ideal for the sport he has pursued since he was a teenager more than half a century ago.

Skiing is what first brought him to Baldwin County in the late 1970s, long before he found the acreage next to the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. In those days, the Magnolia and Fish rivers, which both empty into Weeks Bay, were nearly empty of development.

Stringfellow recalls coming down with friends and skiing up and down the rivers with no one else around. There were only two houses on the Magnolia River and about four or five on the Fish River, and you could ski from one end to the other, buck naked at night, barefoot if you wanted to.

A Landscaping Business That Put Down Roots

After relocating, Stringfellow founded Jubilee Landscape, Inc., which has continued to prosper for 46 years. When he started, he says, there was just one other landscaping company in the area, owned by Wayne Lambert, and becoming a licensed landscape contractor in Baldwin County required only five dollars and a driver’s license. He figures only a small handful of area landscapers have never worked for him at some point.

The company’s name nods to one of the Eastern Shore’s most famous natural phenomena, the jubilee, when crabs, shrimp and flounder crowd the shallows of Mobile Bay in the early morning hours, a rare event found in only a few places in the world.

Many Names, One Property

The land has gone through several identities since Stringfellow bought it. At the time of purchase, it covered 112 acres, and he has downsized over the years through a series of transitions.

He says first it was Red Roof Landing Farms, a tree farm, then they survived three hurricanes in the same year, then started L.A. Berry Farm. In 2011 or 2012 it became Weeks Bay Plantation, when they planted 20 acres of blueberries, 13,870 plants, and now there are about 3,000.

The farm grew tons of organic blueberries for years and shipped them to retailers around the state. That changed, Stringfellow says, when grocers and other buyers began sourcing cheaper organic berries grown in Mexico. The farm has tried other crops, including tomatoes and organic hemp, but kept 1,500 blueberry bushes for the public to pick on a pick-your-own basis.

The Great Bird Takeover

The customers with the biggest appetite for those berries, however, have wings. Stringfellow’s wife, Heather Rothstein, says birds have devastated the crop in recent seasons.

She says it’s been like an apocalyptic bird takeover the last few seasons, starting with cedar waxwings and then crows.

Cedar waxwings are known for traveling in large flocks and feasting on fruit, and a flock can strip bushes quickly. The couple has tried nearly every deterrent available:

• A loudspeaker system playing the calls of eagles and hawks, which worked until the birds grew used to it.
• Kites flown over the fields.
• Mannequins dressed in bright colors.
• A motion-detecting sprinkler system.

Rothstein says they’ve tried everything, even going out at 4 a.m. with dogs to run the birds off. She can’t describe what it’s like to get so many phone calls and have to tell people she’s sorry she can’t open because the birds have eaten their crops. For two to three years she’s had to do this, and it’s devastating.

A Natural Amphitheater for Live Music

Beyond blueberries, Weeks Bay Plantation has become known for music. With the lake as a backdrop, a wooden stage faces a grassy slope that works as a natural amphitheater in a pastoral setting. In spring 2026, the property hosted the Blooms & Brews Spring Fest in April, followed in mid-May by the two-day Essential Rhythms Music Festival, an event designed to raise awareness of mental health issues.

The Essential Rhythms lineup included The Krickets, Paw Paw’s Medicine Cabinet, Nerf the World, John Hart Project, Destiny Inbound, Chris Spies & Quantum Mechanics, Brynnevere, Matthew Jacquette, Molly Thomas and the Rare Birds, Tensaw Jones and East L.A. Fadeaway.

Hosting concerts is one of the couple’s favorite ways to share the property. Rothstein says they’re both live music junkies who chase the Red Clay Strays everywhere and will drive to see whoever’s playing within a two-hour radius.

Music runs in her family. Though she grew up in Louisiana and Texas, Rothstein descends on her mother’s side from the Normand family of musicians, who performed regularly at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear from 1941 to 2000. A singer herself, she performed often in New Orleans with the band Category 5 and other acts at venues including Famous Door, Bourbon Street Blues Company and Razoo.

Silos, Cabins and a Frog Symphony

The property’s farm structures have found new uses. A two-story grain silo serves as the couple’s office, and a smaller silo holds laundry facilities for guests staying at the four Airbnb rentals on site:

• A recently renovated, converted Airstream trailer.
• Two quaint cabins.
• A two-bedroom rental called the Lake House.

Rothstein says of the Lake House that it offers a bird’s-eye view of the lake, and when it hasn’t rained for a while, it’s crystal clear and you can see many fish. The lake holds plenty of largemouth bass and some crappie, plus a tarpon that Stringfellow believes was accidentally stocked by an osprey or eagle passing overhead.

Rothstein says at night you can hear what she calls the frog symphony, and they’ve had people come out to record them because of all the different species.

Still Skiing, Still Winning

Guests often notice jump ramps in the water and the buoys marking a slalom course. Stringfellow never lost his passion for skiing and continues to compete in regional championship tournaments, frequently bringing home trophies, ribbons and medals. He believes his lake beats even the quiet rivers that first drew him from the Birmingham area.

He says the pH in the water is perfect for skiing, making it fast behind the boat yet slow in the turns.

For Sale, With a Few Acres Held Back

Drivers on U.S. 98 near Mary Ann Beach Road often spot the sign for Weeks Bay Plantation and turn in, assuming it is a well-known tourist attraction. There is no gate at the end of the driveway, and visitors are welcome to look around even when no one is home, which many do.

Lately, they may also notice a for-sale sign. A sale could close a chapter spanning 25 years of Stringfellow’s life and the last eight of Rothstein’s. But the couple is not planning to leave entirely. Stringfellow recently ordered another thousand blueberry plants, an early-ripening variety that matures before the intense summer heat makes picking a chore.

He says there are 46 total acres and he wants to keep 16, including the office, the Airbnb, and his one little field to maintain his blueberry business. Whoever buys the rest can have all the blueberries they want to eat.

Whatever comes next, the property’s story says a good deal about this corner of south Baldwin County, where the rivers were once empty enough to ski end to end at night, and where a landscaper with a love for the water built something that belongs to no single category.

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