By Karen Middleton
karen@athensnews-courier.com
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Woody Peebles of Mooresville can’t seem to find a place to park his cars. First, he built a large garage a few years ago, but then turned the building into a double-decker entertainment space where his two college-aged daughters could bring friends.
Then he parked his cars in an open-air tool shed with a lot of old machinery, but when his daughter, Memory, announced she was getting married last year, she told her dad she wanted the wedding festivities to be in Mooresville.
And she wanted him to turn his tool shed into an old-time dancehall for her reception.
Too bad about those cars.
Woody and his wife, Lyla, set to work immediately to make their daughter’s wedding dreams come true.
On June 29, guests for the Memory Peebles-Jacob Risinger nuptials attended the wedding in Mooresville’s Old Brick Church and, afterward, walked or rode golf carts to “the dancehall.”
Guests couldn’t have guessed that that work that had begun a year earlier with Memory’s announcement, continued up until two hours before the 6 p.m. wedding.
“I was still working at 4 o’clock the day of the wedding,” said Woody. “I had to stop then to get ready. Everything wasn’t perfect but I was the only one who knew it.”
Labor of love
Converting a farm shed into an old-time dancehall was easy in one way. Woody, a collector of antique store fixtures and tin signs — and just about anything of a bygone era – had the furnishings stored in one of many outbuildings.
But how would guests dance on a dirt floor?
Work began by moving considerable machinery and tools to another pole barn. Next, Woody and Lyla restacked several cords of wood that were stored in the shed to form an outside half-wall on the street side.
“We had 30 loads of dirt hauled in to level the floor,” he said. “Next, we did all the wiring for the lights and overhead fans. We worked all day, every day, especially in that last four months while my brother, Brent, ran errands.”
Once the floor was leveled, Woody and Lyla hauled in bricks and began to clean them in preparation for laying a partial brick floor.
“We leveled and laid bricks in 12-foot increments,” he said. “We had 5,500 bricks and had to order 4,000 more,” he said.
The couple eventually had more bricks hauled in until they had 30-by-65 feet of brick floor.
“Three carpenters built the dance floor out of plywood, and then I have this friend who is a sign painter and he painted the floor white with green diagonal squares,” he said. “Our church went with some new tables. They said if I’d make a donation to the library, they would give me their old tables.”
Overhead lighting consists of multiple draped strands of small, clear light bulbs. To add to the elegance, Woody ordered large lengths of heavy white canvas, which were gathered across the top of the main entrance and tied back to the sides like draperies. He had an electrician wire a pair of antique gasoline pumps, which served as torchieres to illuminate each side of the entrance.
The furnishings
Now it was time for the furnishings. A wall hanging designed by the Peebles’ daughter consisted of large letters, spelling out “Feast” mounted on the rungs of a horizontally hung wooden ladder on the wall next to the street. The letters assembled to spell “Feast” were salvaged in 1986 when First State Bank of Decatur sold to First Alabama Bank.
Below the Feast sign were two antique white store counters, each measuring about 8 yards in length, that had been salvaged from a general store in Thomaston, Ala. The counters held a reception buffet of fried catfish, chicken, beef tenderloin, marinated shrimp, and of course, cakes.
Along the other side and at each end, Woody built old-time saloons with bars made from counters salvaged from a feed-and-seed store in Thomaston. Guests could toast the couple with spirits from the two saloons, or if they chose, visit a 1950s-era ice cream parlor between and have a milk shake whipped up on the spot using authentic antique mixers.
Seating consisted of antique, wrought-iron ice cream sets scattered around the soda shop with hanging rectangles of unfinished framed lattice serving as a backdrop and wood shavings and sawdust, serving as the flooring.
“We served more than 100 milkshakes that night,” said Woody. “I’ve since taken my milkshake shop on the road to seven or eight events.”
For the open end opposite of the entrance and adjoining the dance floor, the Peebles rented a large white tent, festively lit to house the orchestra.
Change of pace
A cotton farmer from 1969 to 2001, Woody and his brother, Brent Peebles, are now into land development. His new line of work afforded Woody the time to play a lot of golf and to work on his daughter’s dancehall – and, of course, shop for more antiques.
He’s thinking of making his next project a museum of Mooresville and North Alabama history in which he can display his large collection of artifacts.
The dance hall remains much as it was the night of his daughter’s wedding, and it doesn’t look as though Woody has another garage planned.
The couple found room for their two cars – squeezed between the ice cream parlor and one of the saloons.
