From a Selma Foundry to a Fairhope Backyard: The Long Journey of the Birdie Bell
Some heirlooms sit on shelves. The Cerf family’s bell hangs six feet in the air on a repurposed I-beam, weighing more than 300 pounds, and it has already lived at least four lives: locomotive signal bell, foundry timekeeper, golf course marker, and now — after a painstaking restoration by a pair of Fairhope craftsmen — the Cocktail Bell in a Fairhope backyard.
The story begins, as many Gulf Coast stories do, with summers in Point Clear. The family of the woman at the center of it spent its summers there, and the home her parents eventually bought just north of Bailey’s Creek came with a cast iron bell and a long lanyard that stretched back to the screen porch. Legend held that the bell would ring at the first sign of a jubilee, calling neighbors to the water for the seafood harvest. The truth was homier: her mother rang it to call the kids out of the water for supper. “It worked every time,” she recalls.
A Bell From the Railroad Era
Susie and Larry Cerf moved to Fairhope from California a few years ago, drawn back toward Susie’s roots — she grew up in Selma, and her cousins, the late Ann Miller of Fairhope and Belle Bear of Pensacola, convinced the couple that home was the right place to land. When they decided to build, cousin Ann offered a bell that had been gathering dust in the Millers’ garage for four or five years: a bell from their grandfather’s factory, the Selma Foundry and Machine Company.
The bell’s pedigree was more romantic than its dusty exile suggested. Before it reached the Millers, it had stood for years beside the number one green on the Azalea course at Lakewood Golf Club, where golfers rang it after making a birdie on the opening hole — hence the name everyone still uses. And before Lakewood, it had a working life. Susie’s grandfather, Maurice I. Bloch, owned the Selma foundry, whose railroad tracks ran straight through the middle of the plant so finished products could be loaded directly onto rail cars. The family speculates the bell came off one of the early steam locomotives that served the foundry.
A railroad-industry friend of the restoration team narrowed the dating: the bell most likely came off a steam locomotive manufactured between 1870 and 1915, though no manufacturing marks survive to identify its maker. In its foundry days, it rang at 8 a.m. to start the workday, at noon for lunch, and at 5 p.m. to end it. When the foundry closed, Susie’s father gave the bell to Mark and Ann Miller, who converted it into the Birdie Bell.
Jim Ellis, Brandon Sylvester, and the Restoration
The Cerfs considered the practical option — getting rid of it. Neighbor Jim Ellis, an engineer whose hobby is woodworking, would not allow it. He began researching the bell’s history and eventually connected with Joe Strange, the longtime owner of the Fairhope Iron Shop, affectionately known around Mobile as “Iron Joe.” As Strange wound down his business, his son-in-law introduced him to Brandon Sylvester, a welder and heavy-equipment mechanic who had been welding since he was 17. Originally from Indiana and a Foley resident for years, Sylvester took to the ornamental side of the craft immediately. “It’s a lot more fun,” he says.
Ellis put together engineering sketches for the project and worked closely with Sylvester on the restoration. Sylvester took the brass bell down to its original metal and restored it, preserving the original yoke — the iron headstock that lets it swing — and the original handle that once reached back into the locomotive cab for the engineer to pull. The stand proved the harder problem: a 300-plus-pound bell needed a substantial pedestal at least six feet off the ground. The answer came from salvage — an old I-beam found in a yard of scrap metal, repurposed into the bell stand. “We repurposed everything to keep the bell in its original form,” Sylvester says. The heaviest challenge, the team agrees, was simply lifting the bell onto its perch — “that’s a whole other story.”
The Cast of Characters
The project worked because each participant had a role. Susie served as project manager. Jim was the technical advisor. Brandon did the restoration. Larry, by unanimous account, provided moral support every step of the way. The result now stands in the Cerfs’ backyard, surrounded by landscaping and in daily service: where the bell once marked the foundry’s shifts and a golf course’s good shots, it now rings for cocktails.
The Craftsman Behind the Bell
Sylvester, whom Strange now refers all his work to, has built a small ornamental practice alongside the heavy equipment trade. Recent projects include the railings, handrails, and gates at St. James Church in Fairhope, wedding arches for local florists, and other decorative metalwork. All of his business has come by word of mouth, and he works from a mobile unit fully equipped for on-site fabrication anywhere in the coastal area. He is candid about what he wants next: more metal art.
“I get excited about repurposing old metal,” he says. “I do all the design work. Any project, whether it’s residential or commercial, I’d love to talk to you about it.”
Not every family treasure deserves 300 pounds of rescued steel and a team of craftsmen. But the Birdie Bell’s journey — from a Selma foundry’s whistle, to a golf green’s celebration, to a backyard’s happy hour — is a reminder that the Gulf Coast keeps its history the way it keeps everything else: by hand, by friendship, and with a good story attached.