Rose Lane Leavell is walking through a stand of pines she planted with
her grandfather in 1952. Back in the truck, her famous, rock-and-roll
piano-playing husband, Chuck, talks about growing up on a farm outside
Montgomery, Ala.
"I remember playing by the creek as a kid and watching my dad plow with
a horse," says Chuck. Rose Lane had fond memories of the lifestyle, too.
"My whole family lived on the land. And I'm a nature lover myself," she
says.
On the truck ride from the main house to this timber stand, both talk
about how at one time they left the country lifestyle for bright lights,
big city and fast times.
Both went back to the land when it called.
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Chuck and Rose Lane had their first date on New Year's Eve in 1972. They hit it off immediately. Rose Lane was working for Capricorn Records in Macon, Ga., and was working to promote a concert for The Allman Brothers Band. Chuck was the Allmans' keyboardist, but he had other designs on the future.
"He told me he wanted to be a farmer," says Rose Lane. "Well, I didn't want to marry a farmer. I thought the rock-and-roll thing was pretty great."
She married Chuck Leavell the rocker in 1973. He toured with The Allman Brothers until 1976.
When Rose Lane's grandmother passed away in 1981, Rose Lane inherited a house in the country surrounded by 2,300 acres. The land that would become Charlane Plantation had been in Rose Lane's family since 1932. Since Chuck was between musical gigs, the opportunity to "be a farmer" presented itself.
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"When we inherited the land, the first challenge we had was to keep it," says Rose Lane. Some of the land had to be sold to pay part of the estate-tax bill to the IRS. Also, Rose Lane's grandmother had been in poor health for several years, so there was still much to do with the old house and with the land around it.
Chuck decided to settle down on the farm and possibly even leave music altogether. But the Rolling Stones called in 1981, and a few months later Chuck took the job for a European tour.
Since Chuck was back on the road so much with his music, timber farming seemed like the best way to use the land.
"I was fascinated by the time factor� �� ��planting something and having it pay off in 20 years," he says.
Chuck admits that he had a lot to learn. He started by doing research. He also enrolled in a correspondence course offered by the Forest Landowners Association and the Georgia Extension Service. "I was on tour with The Fabulous Thunderbirds at the time," he says. "I did my forestry homework on the tour bus."
Trees are always on Chuck's mind. He doesn't miss an opportunity on his music travels to learn about forestry. On the Stones' "Bridges to Babylon" tour, he visited the famous Muir Woods outside San Francisco. While in Europe, he visited with a man who owned a 200-year-old stand of oak.
"Those trees were so expensive that the owner negotiated the timber price by the tree, not by the stand," Chuck says. He also has visited with German foresters who have harvest and management records dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries.
Back home at Charlane, though, Chuck deals with the same realities every timber farmer faces. "Mergers and acquisitions mean less competition in the timber market," he says. "The old, traditional markets are disappearing or moving overseas."
The Leavells take an activist approach to forestry. Chuck's book, "Forever Green," on the history and the future of the American forest, is in its second edition.
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They also take pride in their on-farm education events. "Everyone from second-grade classes to Yale University students has been here to learn," notes Chuck.
The couple teaches other landowners about quail habitats, migrating songbirds, longleaf pine...things that are important to them and to the land. Sound timber management, an emphasis on education and activism helped the Leavells capture the 1999 Outstanding Tree Farm of the Year award from the American Tree Farm System.
The Leavells have diversified Charlane Plantation with a hunting business. Charlane timber plays a role in that, too. A new hunting lodge, built mostly from salvaged timber, is set to open soon."We've also built a barn from salvaged timber� �� ��trees that have been struck by lightning or have disease problems," says Chuck.
He is still optimistic about forestry's future, and he's still working to make it brighter. Chuck lobbied for the Forest Land Enhancement Program, part of the 2002 farm bill that allotted $40 million to landowners as incentive to plant trees. The funding was eventually pulled, and Chuck is working again to get it restored.
Meanwhile, the road and the piano call now and again. But Chuck and Rose Lane are never far away from Charlane in spirit. You can tell that by reading the title of Chuck's new autobiography: "Between Rock and a Home Place."
Chuck has a studio at Charlane, and he beams when he bangs out a Stones tune on the piano. Photos of famous people and framed records hang on walls all over the plantation. So rock music and the road have their place in his life. But as Chuck drives his truck across the property� �� ��through well-maintained stands of longleaf pine past the private lake, the barn and a pasture for the horses� �� ��it's obvious there's no place like the "home place."