16 • Thursday, August 12, 2021
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OVER THE MOUNTAIN JOURNAL
Tree’s Fall Y’all Alabama Sawyer Creates Environmentally Sustainable Products
Journal photos by Jordan Wald
By Emily Williams-Robertshaw
Premo Factory is located in a more-than-100-year-old building that was originally constructed to house Preston Motors Corp., which made the Premocar. It is now home to Elegant Earth, The Arbor, Alabama Sawyer and InTown Wholesale Nursery. Above, from left, Leigh Spencer, co-founder of Alabama Sawyer; Elegant Earth President Chadwick Stogner, Premo Factory owner; and Jared Sarubbi, Intown Wholesale Nursery.
Trading Places
For Leigh Spencer, co-founder of Alabama Sawyer, the history behind Premo Factory’s building and its recent renewal presents a perfect metaphor. The factory, built in 1920, was set to be demolished but Chad Stogner and his team at Elegant Earth saw its potential and recycled the old building to create a modern factory that focuses on the trades. That aligns with what lies at the heart of Alabama Sawyer, a company that obtains fallen trees from Birmingham’s urban forest and uses them to create environmentally sustainable products. Spencer and co-founder Cliff Spencer have spent much of the pandemic settling into the company’s new home at Premo Factory in Norwood. “In between the scrap yards and the palette factories, it’s a little slice of heaven,” Leigh Spencer said.
By Emily Williams-Robertshaw
T
he newly branded Premo Factory is putting Birmingham on the map for creative manufacturing. When Elegant Earth President Chadwick Stogner was looking for a home for the company’s garden-inspired furniture manufacturing operations, he saw potential in a warehouse in Norwood at 1700 Vanderbilt Road that had seen better days. Over time, the factory has grown to house four synergistic manufacturing and wholesale brands: Elegant Earth, The Arbor, Alabama Sawyer and InTown Wholesale Nursery. After purchasing the property, Stogner became acquainted with a local historian, the late J.D. Weeks of Gardendale, who filled him in on the history of the building. The more-than-100-year-old building originally was constructed to house Preston Motors Corp., which made the Premocar. The history led Stogner to name his new facility the Premo Factory, speaking to the quality of each brand while paying homage to the building’s past and legacy of manufacturing. Weeks had amassed a large collection of old postcards and ephemera about businesses and buildings in the Birmingham area, which inspired his work as a historian. He authored a number of books, including “Premocar: Made in Birmingham.” The Premocar, built from 1919 to 1923, featured a carriage that was crafted by hand using
Premo Factory houses manufacturing and wholesale brands Elegant Earth, The Arbor, Alabama Sawyer and InTown Wholesale Nursery. kiln-dried wood. President Warren G. Harding was chauffeured in a Premocar during a 1921 visit to Birmingham.
“It was a well-funded operation at the time, and it was a big deal to have a car manufacturing plant in Birmingham,” Stogner said. Stogner has used historical advertising and graphic design materials from the original Preston Motors as inspiration for Premo’s branding. To Stogner, the Norwood neighborhood seemed a little forgotten when he bought the building in 2013. “There’s so much great architecture and history in this area,” he said. The 185,000-square-foot factory was in poor condition and was slated for demolition. “It would have been a waste to see it torn down,” Stogner said. While other industrial manufacturers saw the building as a “white elephant,” he added, he felt the facility’s historical charm and the vast space lent itself perfectly to his creative manufacturing operation. The sawtooth roof design allows a lot of natural light to enter the facility, but it also “harkens back to the days of American manufacturing at its zenith.” The factory’s design naturally evolved into a shared space.
Operations Coming Together
“When we first moved in, the building had been carved up,” Stogner said. “There were maybe 10 or 12 different people working out here and they just used chain-link fencing to divide the areas.”
See PREMO, page 18
Journal photo by Jordan Wald
Newly Branded Premo Factory Brings Together Birmingham Trades with National Footprint
Alabama Sawyer cuts the wood into slabs and lumber, which is stacked and left to dry for at least six months before it’s finished off in a kiln.
Before the move, Alabama Sawyer had been operating in multiple locations, based in a space at the Avondale co-working operation MAKEbhm. They were also milling their wood at a facility in Bessemer. For several years, the Spencers had been renting wood storage space at Premo Factory. “I grew attached to the property and just kept envisioning our shop and milling operation all in one place,” Spencer said. They will have some pieces in The Arbor, which has relocated to Premo, and will be selling urban wood out of their wood barn, but it’s about the trade. “Our space is a factory, not a showroom,” Spencer said. “I can show people samples they can take home and we can visit the work in progress. They can see the process in real time.”
Attracted by the Trees
The Spencers initially established a professional woodworking brand in Los Angeles.
See TREES, page 17
