Innovation, technology, research and a successful vineyard

DUBLIN – The magic, the history, the diversification and reality of Lu Mil Vineyard comes from vineyard owner Ron Taylor and his wife Vicky.

“This is where I was born and raised,” Taylor said. “Right down the road here from Lu Mil Vineyard. The house right down the road that I was born in was built sometime in the ‘30s. Then when I was 11, we moved into the brick house right here at Lu Mil Vineyard. Lucille and Miller Taylor, they were mama and daddy to a lot of people.”

When the tobacco business went south, the Taylor family began to look for other ventures to survive.

“There was this interest in Muscadine grapes,” he said. “Duplin Winery was really growing at that time and nobody had an automatic machine for harvesting grapes. So, my brother Oren built a

machine. He took one of the old tobacco harvester frames and made a machine to harvest grapes. Years before, he and my daddy built a machine to pick blueberries when that crop started coming into

Bladen County.”

The family sold farm implements and if they could not find what they needed, they made it.

“Anyway, that’s how the grape business started,” Taylor said. “My dad had experimented

with everything that he’d done. This farm here at Lu Mil Vineyard was our research farm.

We’re strict Baptist people here and when the church doors were open, my mama and daddy were

there. They are part of the 11 people that built Dublin First Baptist Church. When daddy

thought he needed to be in the field experimenting with new equipment, I can hear my mother

hollerin’ while he was out there on his hands and knees with a stick and making something to crop tobacco. I could hear Lucille calling, “Miller, you’d better get out of that field and go to

church… you’re going to lose everything you got working on Sunday. So that’s the environment

that we grew up in.”

And if you haven’t guessed it by now – the famous Lu Mil Vineyard was named in honor of Lucille and Miller Taylor. They prayed about it all, they had those early ideas for creating things and their legacy

is rich and deep and it lives on.

Ron Taylor was born in 1952 and has been a part of an ever-growing evolution of the Taylor Family Companies. As far back as most people can remember, the names and faces of Taylor have been prominent in the Dublin and Elizabethtown area.

“I am 73 years old,” he said. “A lot of water has been under the bridge. I’ve lived here in this area and had the chance to grow up in a fine community. I’ve always liked the people we’ve dealt with and many are our friends and employees. Your customers were always your friends. Even with D’Vine Foods, an offshoot of Lu Mil Vineyard – a lot of those folks were our customers from the past. Customers who worked with us in cotton or tobacco who had to reinvent themselves. Now they’re growing fruits and vegetables.”

The Bladen Journal printed a story 35 years ago that featured Taylor Manufacturing and the three-generations of Taylors that had been instrumental at that time period. Although things have changed slightly with patriarch Miller Taylor and his son Oren passing on, Denise (Taylor) Bridgers is a co-owner with Ron and Vicky Taylor. And added to that mix now is Bridgers’ oldest daughter, Kayla, who works for D’Vine Foods and also heads up the May Day Jamboree and is involved with all other events at Lu Mil Vineyard.

The Bladen Journal from 1990: “Taylor… The name Taylor has been on the farm scene in Bladen County for over 40 years. When you hear Taylor, you immediately think of farm equipment. From the beginning when the Taylors sold tractors as Taylor-Wilkes Tractor and Equipment to today when the name Taylor means a diversification of products dealing with, not only farming, but also heating.

The company was founded by Miller and Lucille Taylor. Ron Taylor says “We had a Massey-Ferguson dealership as well as a welding shop and my father was always interested in finding a better way of getting things done. Especially when it came to growing tobacco and peanuts.”

The Taylor high rider sprayers were popular as was a peanut trailer Miller Taylor designed to haul and dry peanuts from the field.

Oren Taylor says, “The first Taylor Bulk Barn was really a peanut trailer with a top on it.”

The first Taylor Harvester, a pull-type, was designed for growers with small acreage. The cost to mechanize using a Taylor system of barns and harvesters did not cost as much as other systems that were being marketed. The company started selling the pull-type harvesters in 1972.

When hard times hit the agriculture economy the company looked for other markets to diversify.

The company started building waterstoves to heat agriculture facilities as well as individual’s homes. The Taylor Waterstove is marketed all over the United States. The Gator, Oren Taylor’s invention of an over-the-row garden cultivator is becoming the gardener’s tool of necessity.

Taylor Manufacturing is truly a family owned and operated Bladen Business. Ron, Oren and his daughter, Denise, all work in the family business. Taylor Manufacturing employees 160 people and sells their products in 50 states.”

According to Taylor, while he was growing up, “Everyone was tobacco farmers.”

“We also did some cotton,” he said. “People say I can’t remember, but when I was two or three years old, my mother was pickin’ cotton. I was in the field with her in the playpen (I was in a bushel tub). So, I go back quite a ways in this area.”

The humble beginnings of the Taylors were fought with hard work, blood, sweat and tears. It was also a life of faith and trusting God every day of their lives. From their labors, they have much fruit as a legacy to that earlier time, The Bible reminds us not to overlook or be discouraged by small beginnings, and this family overcame every obstacle with songs in their hearts.

To have the opportunity to talk with Taylor and to walk back through his stories and the paths that he has walked can fill a heart with their wisdom and if you listen carefully, you can follow that road and the habits that bring success.

“We grew tobacco, and we raised hogs and peanuts,” he said. “Farming, but daddy was a welder who used to work back in the Baltimore shipyards. He left when he was a teenager, and he always told me many stories. He used to go down into the hatches of ships and follow a rope down and would weld until lunch time and couldn’t see a thing except for what he was welding. He would do the same thing in the afternoons.”

Taylor was brought up and raised by an old-school mentor from the ‘30s. The mentors from that age had successfully navigated dust bowls, bank failures, depressions and World Wars. Once again, it was a generation that knew about putting in a full day’s work that turned into weeks and years and finally a lifetime. To get a chance to learn from that generation is pure gold. And their bottom-line answer when things got murky or difficult was, “MY help comes from the Lord.”

When Miller Taylor came back home, he had the first electric welder. Funny how their labor-saving devices were not meant to give them more time for leisure, but time to get more work accomplished.

“My daddy was not only a welder, but a mechanic who would repair things for the local farmers,” he said. “Now, we were on the White Oak telephone exchange at that time and even before there was a telephone exchange in this area, he put in a telephone system of his own. That was back in the early ‘40s. Everyone in this neighborhood over here had one of those old crank telephones that my daddy had put in.”

It was a time when you either innovated, developed, invented and built or you did without. Miller Taylor was not a man who would choose to live without – for him or his family.

“We had a big family,” Ron Taylor said. “What you see as the results here today are from a lot of different people who wanted to see prosperity in the community, working together. At that time, it was me and my brothers, but Denise, my niece, is the boss now today. She looks after everything. We also have a tremendously good staff. Denise is the third generation, and her daughter Kayla is the fourth. Of course, me and my wife are still very involved with all of it. Particularly the ice business that we’re doing now as an offshoot and as we diversified. Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Taylor Manufacturing had over 500 employees. With the demise of the federal tobacco program, it just stopped due to health concerns. There’s still a lot of tobacco grown but nothing like what used to be. Before that and Smithfield got going, we were probably one of the biggest employers in the county.”

Like his daddy before him, he was born to the breed of rolling up his sleeves and finding something that would be timely and sustainable. And something that would make a difference to his generation. From his father that repaired the ships that would go all over the world, he had an idea for his own generation.

“We still had a big staff, and we built the Taylor Waterstove which is an outside wood-fired furnace,” he said. “They were sold all over America. It did really well up until just a few years ago. Then the environmental concerns took over.”

From the old crops to a new crop that has not only taken off but has provided a backdrop for festivals and celebrations of all kinds in Dublin. And with that new crop, there was technology and grassroots research and development such as developing the first commercial peanut dryer and the Taylor Grape Harvester.

“There was this surge of interest in growing Muscadine grapes,” he said. “And there was no equipment manufacturer anywhere here in the east. Most of it was made across the pond somewhere. My brother, Oren, who was the brain of the crowd and was a mechanic. He and daddy could take a welding rod and a few wrenches and make about anything in the world. Oren was particularly talented in listening to what someone needed, and he would draw it up with a piece of chalk on the sidewalk and then in a few days, he’d have it built for you.”

As the cash crop of tobacco evaporated, the Taylors were looking for new things to build and sell and survive the evolution of American production. They are truly a family that has learned how to survive the march of time.

Since the vineyard took off, it has diversified within itself and has created more than just a vineyard but has become a top-notch venue for functions such as weddings, receptions and community meetings. It has created entertainment at no charge for the community in their annual May Day Jamboree and their October North Carolina Grape Festival. There are annual 5K Wine Runs through the beauty and scent of the vineyards and fishing ponds.

From their website the announcement of D’Vine Foods was another diversification that made the vineyard quaint and hometown and all things delicious. “Along with manufacturing farm equipment and the popular Taylor Waterstove, agri-tourism, growing grapes & selling wine, Ron Taylor continues to diversify the family businesses with D’Vine Foods. “When we opened Lu Mil Vineyard, we looked for someone to make our jams, jellies and pasteurized juice from our own grapes that operated under Food and Drug Administration guidelines, “Taylor says, “but there was no such local company. Several would privately label products, but no one would take our fruit, process it, and put our private label on it. We want to sell quality products that we know are handled in a safe manner.” Lu Mil Vineyard began processing some of their homegrown fruit in a small way. When the demand for their own products increased and the fact that other farmers wanted the same service, they soon realized that there was a need for a processor who would take local grown fruits and vegetables, contract package them for the farmer with their private label. Therefore, D’Vine Foods was created. For more information, visit www.dvinefoods.com.”

There is twelve Vineyard Cabins available for short term or longer vacations and one of the most innovative festivals in all of North Carolina is the Lu Mil Vineyard Festival of Lights. Christmas has always been a special time for the Taylor family, and they have made Christmas an even more memorable event as people from all over come to view an unbelievable 4-mile drive-thru light show with the property all lit up and in full Christmas celebration. The annual Lu Mil Vineyard Festival of Lightsis a magical holiday tradition that transforms the vineyard into a dazzling Christmas wonderland showcasing millions of lights and decorations. The event takes many months of planning and months of actual setup. There is music, lights and a hometown celebration that will take your breath away.

It makes you wonder if Lucille and Miller knew of all the ways that their legacy would become legend and the teaching and mentoring of being visionaries would yield such incredible fruit. They taught their family how to survive. How to mentor. How to diversify. And most of all, how to learn from all that’s gone before them.

And of course, the bottom line. God will make a way… where there seems to be no way.