Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Russet Woods boasts 950 homes, a third of which take part in the optional Home Owners Association.
Like many communities today, Russet Woods started out small.
In the early 1970s, Albert Awtrey, a managing partner with Awtrey Realty, built many of the homes in Russet Woods, said Karen Apel, president of the neighborhood’s Home Owners Association. Sitting in the southwest of Hoover, this would mark the start of the neighborhood, although it would be a little while longer until it was annexed into Hoover in the late 1980s.
“We didn’t even have a Hoover zip code [at that time] I don’t think,” said Diane Camp with the Russet Woods HOA, founded in 1987. “There was no cable, and the water came from a different area [than Birmingham Water Works].”
Local resident Ed Wertz added that often times, the water was “unreliable at best.”
Despite the challenges of a new community, families began moving to the neighborhood and Russet Woods.
“Russet Woods continued to expand from the sleepy little backwoods (or so it seemed — my mother referred to it as ‘Podunk’) community into the huge development it is today,” Wertz said.
By 1997, the residents came together to raise $20,000 to tear down the existing sign to build a new brick sign for the entrance.
“It used to be wooden and really bad. You couldn’t hardly see it,” Camp said. “We did brick by brick, and everybody gave money for it. We built this beautiful brick sign at the entrance.”
Now, the neighborhood that started as only a few paved streets has flourished to have 950 homes, about a third of which take part in the optional HOA Camp said, and has a park next to Johnsons Lake for local residents.
“It is still an area where young families want to raise their children,” Apel said. “Couples who were raised in this neighborhood moved back into the neighborhood to raise their children.”
