Wayne Champion and his wife Patsy will soon celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary but he will also be celebrating 51 years of being a very unique homebuilder in this community.

What makes Wayne special from other contractors is that he hand-drives every nail. He doesn’t use fancy equipment or pneumatic nail guns and drills. He never has and never will.

He has built small homes to huge mansions in the likes of neighborhoods like Northriver Yacht Club and even the famed restaurant RP Kiplings. Unlike most contractors in town, he actually nails the boards and puts his sweat into every structure instead of just standing around supervising.

For 51 years, all he has used himself is a 13oz hammer. He uses old techniques and materials such as reclaimed lumber, doors, windows, and hardware from days past to make these new structures a beautiful work of art.

Any man that goes to work for Wayne over all these years knows upfront, each nail will be driven by hand, each timber hoisted up with a rope by sheer muscle instead of by technology. He has been a sought after homebuilder for his expertise in the field and the blood, sweat and tears he and his men pour into every piece of wood.

Wayne has remodeled some historical buildings and was selected to do so just for his accuracy and techniques in getting the structure back to its original beauty.

What is also so amazing about Wayne is the fact that he is such a humble man. He has built multi-million dollar homes with his bare hands, yet his house is a modest one where he raised his two children, Patrick and Patty, with his wife Patsy.

Their home on Old Fayette Road greet guests with tall sunflowers his grandchildren grew along the fence, house cats and a dog or two. Wayne even has several mules that he and Patsy use each year when they join their friends for an almost two-week journey on a covered wagon train. He and Patsy are huge history buffs with a love of traveling the Alabama back roads and byways in a covered wagon train, sleeping under the stars and eating by campfire.

Wayne still works a little and although he could have used all the world’s technology to do so, he chose to use only what was given to him, his own body.