Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 22, 1993 TAG: 9309220041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: SYDNORSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
They have too many customers.
The Howells are the chief executive officers, comptrollers, lawn mowers and heavy lifters at Howell Ornamental Concrete, about midway between Rocky Mount and Martinsville.
Spread on a grassy acre along U.S. 220, the Howell empire is a hernia-sufferer's nightmare. Concrete squirrels and birdbaths. Concrete benches and pots and pagodas. Concrete geese wearing World War I aviator caps and goggles. A concrete Snow White and her Seven concrete Dwarfs. Eight-point concrete bucks. Concrete burros.
It is a concrete extravaganza. The Howells opened the joint in 1988 and it became an instant landmark in the 50-mile string of landmarks between Roanoke and Martinsville.
There's Boones Mill. ("Year-round sales of rebel flags, fresh crop Georgia pecans, kudzu by the foot, and uncomfortable-looking porch furniture made of sticks.")
Then there's Clements Tractor. ("More orange Kubota tractors on the lawn than you could shake a plow at.")
Then there's Rocky Mount. ("More Dairy Queen restaurants per capita in our metro area than any town in America.")
Then there's Anderson Tractor. ("More green John Deere tractors on the lawn than you could shake a harrow at.")
And then Howell's Ornamental Concrete. ("More concrete sea horses than you could shake a truss at.")
Many travelers stop to browse and buy at the concrete-ornament superstore.
"I've had people - on vacation, I guess - drop clothes out of the car to carry home some concrete," says Major Howell, hands tucked behind the bib of his overalls.
Problem is, shoppers have a knack for pulling into the gravel drive just as Howell has mixed himself up a fresh batch of quick-drying concrete to pour into the molds in his workshop.
"You spend a half-hour with 'em while they're here and by the time you get back to the shop . . ." he says, squinting at yet another car pulling off the highway, "your concrete's dry."
The Howells' heart, though, is in wholesaling, and there seems to be money in it. They ship truckloads of 'crete ornaments to Greensboro and Goldsboro and Charlotte, N.C., and to Plattsburgh, N.Y. - so far north it's practically a Montreal suburb.
Major Howell says he's got a man wanting to buy 2,000 concrete birdbaths each month.
A man can't get that kind of work done with customers always wanting to know the price of the concrete Virgin Marys.
The Howells have opted to retreat to their former home near Hillsville, in Carroll County.
They'll auction off the Franklin County site - the land, the doublewide, the ornaments, "the whole kit and caboodle and caboodle and kit," is how Howell describes it - on Oct. 2.
They'll start from scratch again in Carroll with a focus on the wholesale end of the concrete ornament trade.
"Give me seven days and I'll load your tractor-trailer full of 'em," says Howell confidently.
by CNB