LOXLEY, Alabama — About seven years ago, Doug Hall was looking for something to do after retirement.

“You can’t just retire,” he said. “You have to have a reason to get out of bed every morning. You can only golf and fish so much and I don’t play golf.”

Woodworking was something Hall had learned as a young man, making his first piece of furniture, a coffee table, when he was in college.

“People asked me if I learned from my father, but he was a jet engine mechanic, so it didn’t come from him,” Hall said. “If I got it from anyone, I learned it from my grandfather, who was a master carpenter.  I really didn’t know him that well, he died when I was 4, but I guess I got the woodworking gene from him.”

A native of Niceville, Fla., after college, Hall began working in the sprinkler business, selling fire protection systems. The job would eventually bring him to Mobile and he moved to Baldwin County in 1990, settling in the small community of Silverhill.

“I love this little town,” he said. “I tell people my nearest neighbors are cows and they’re some of the best neighbors you can have.”

Woodworking was always a hobby, and when he and his wife Karen got the opportunity to purchase Five Oaks Cypress Patio Furniture, located just up the road between Silverhill and Loxley, he jumped at the chance.

“The person we bought the business from (Rick Barnhart) was a Baptist minister and he decided to sell the business when he took over as head of all Baptist churches in Baldwin County (as director of the Baldwin Baptist Association, whose main office is in Silverhill),” Hall said. Barnhart would later become head of the state Baptist Association.

“One thing we inherited when we took over the business was a good reputation,” Hall said. “This business has been in operation for more than 25 years and we have customers that have been buying from the company since its beginning and keep coming back.”

Hall and his daughter, Audra, make about 25 different set pieces, according to the company’s brochure, with prices ranging from $50 for a planter, which comes with a matching modular bench for $100; up to $329 for a table glider, which consists of a two-seat glider bench with a table in the middle.

The table glider is one of his biggest sellers, Hall said, along with a traditional porch swing, offered in varying lengths from 2-feet ($169) up to 6-feet ($209). A 5 ½-foot table swing, which features two seats and a table in the middle, sells for $229.

They also sell a variety of Adirondack items, including a basic chair ($189) that comes with an optional footstool for $69, a rocker, which runs $199.

All of the pieces are made from untreated and unfinished cypress, he said, and use only screws with pre-drilled holes.

“I tell people if they want to paint it, we can use treated wood and build that for them, but cypress should never be painted,” he said. “It needs to be left to weather in the elements, otherwise it will rot. My goal is to make something that people can enjoy for 100 years or more.”

Everything comes with built-in drink holders, some that can be hidden away for storage purposes. Of course, everything can be modified to fit the customers’ needs.

“It’s my business, so I can do pretty much anything the customer wants,” he said.

While they do a good bit of business selling outdoor furniture to condos on the beach, most of the Hall’s customers are for private use.

“We have loyal customers who buy one or two pieces every year,” he said. “I love this business because I get to meet a wide variety of people. The first thing I ask people is what they do for a living or what they did before they retired. That’s mostly because I’m nosey, but I just enjoy getting to know people.”

About half of his business comes from word of mouth, Hall said, a lot of which is generated from arts and crafts shows, like the Fairhope Arts & Crafts Festival, which will be held this weekend, March 15-17 in downtown Fairhope.

“The company has been associated with the Arts & Crafts Festival for more than 20 years,” he said. “The main thing I like about Fairhope is that they always try to put us in the same place, so our customers always know where to find us.”

The Halls travel to about 12 shows per year, six in the fall and six in the spring including shows locally in Foley and Pensacola, traveling as far as Georgia and Tennessee.

“You just never know who you’re going to meet on those trips,” he said. “That’s part of the fun of it all.”

Hall said they hand out about 300 to 500 brochures on average, just in Fairhope every year.

“We get customers that come in six weeks, even six months later saying they saw us at the festival,” he said. “They usually have a piece already picked out that they want and we can make it for them.”

At age 60, Hall says, he’ll keep going as long as he enjoys his work, with the goal of eventually passing on the business to his daughter.

“Right now, there are only one or two pieces that I make that she doesn’t and she makes 99 percent of the swings we sell,” he said. “I’ll do three or four a year and when I do one she laughs at me because she’s so much faster at it than I am. It’s just the matter that she does it so much more often.”

Even when he does turn over the business to her, he says, he’ll continue to come in as long as he’s able and work.

“Then she’ll be the one giving me a paycheck,” he said. To that Audra responds with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye, “maybe.”