Profile: Dr. Patrick Bell, surgeon and woodworker
It didn’t take long for Dr. Patrick Bell to fall in love with Boca Grande and all of Gasparilla Island. He came for a weekend visit, and by the third day, he had bought a house and decided this would be his permanent home.
That was in 1994. The local real estate agent was actually helping Dr. Bell’s friend find a house to buy. He and his wife were only along for the ride. But when the agent finally took the group to a house in what he called “the slums” – the north end of the island – the magic happened. A walk out onto the home’s dock sealed the deal. Two 3-foot snook under the dock greeted the Bells, and there was no turning back.
Dr. Bell grew up on an island, South Padre Island, off the southern coast of Texas. His father was a shrimper, and young Pat grew up loving the water, boats, sun, sand and going fishing at every opportunity. He always imagined he would return to that island when he retired.
In the meantime, that little boy grew up to be a doctor, a surgeon, and moved to Flint, Michigan, where he had a successful practice for more than 30 years.
“I had a real good friend who kept wanting me to come and visit him in Boca Grande. I finally just gave up – he was one of my best friends in the world.”
So Dr. Bell and his wife flew down on a Wednesday night.
“On Thursday he had made arrangements for us to go fishing with one of the local fishing guides,” Dr. Bell recalled. “That sounded good to me – it’s what I’ve been doing all my life. And we had a wonderful day fishing. Then on Thursday he and his wife took us for a tour of the island and showed us their condo, which they were looking to sell and replace with a house here.”
On Saturday the four friends met with a real estate agent and looked at a number of great houses, but they were all on the south end of the island and were too pricey. The agent finally said he had only one place on the island that might be the right fit. He would take them to “the slums of the island.” There was not much development there, and it was mostly scrub grass. There were a couple of houses, and one was for sale by its owner, another broker, Richard Hugger.
“We walked into the Hugger house and I looked around. And you know how sometimes you get a message from up above?” Dr. Bell got that feeling. “And then I walked out on the dock, and underneath the dock there were two snook, about three feet long, and I just looked at the real estate man and said, ‘You got a purchase agreement?’”
The agent was a bit shocked, but he did have a purchase agreement with him, and Dr. Bell signed it. He and Mr. Hugger soon discussed the details of the sale, and the Bells had themselves a Boca Grande home.
“It’s been blood, sweat and tears and the love of my life,” Dr. Bell said. “I just love this place. I always wanted to live on an island like where I grew up.”
The Bells enjoyed living in Michigan, and his medical practice was great. Dr. Bell fished in the rivers and lakes, catching salmon and trout and other freshwater fish. After they bought the Boca Grande house they kept their Michigan house, and Mrs. Bell would come down regularly, but Dr. Bell was too busy working to come very often. Then finally, he retired. They kept the house in Michigan for a while, but eventually let it go. Boca Grande was where they were most at home.
As a boy, Dr. Bell had developed a hobby of making things out of wood. His father’s shrimp business included several boats, a marine railway, and a bit that could haul the boats out of the water to scrape the bottom. In addition, it had a large woodshop, and the boy played there all the time, making small boats and other things. When his father retired, he also took up woodworking, but his favorite style was wood turning: using a wood lathe to make bowls, trays and other beautiful objects.
He often encouraged his son to take up this form of the hobby, but Pat was a surgeon, and the tools were risky for a person whose hands were his livelihood. He would tell his father, “If I hurt my hands, I can’t do what I do. Not that I don’t want to, but …”
Around the year his father turned 90, he was still trying to persuade his son to try the art form.
“I just gave up and let him teach me,” Dr. Bell recalled. “It was simple things. ‘Take it easy. Use your head for something besides a hat rack,’ he would say. And I began to like it, but not love it. Then, when Dad was 96, he literally just fell over, onto his lathe, and died. Just comfortable, and gone. I had promised him that if he died, I would take his lathe home and try it, and if I liked it, I’d keep it. If I didn’t, I would sell it.”
He continued: “We had a celebration of life, and I took my truck down there (to Texas) and loaded that lathe up and brought it home. I built a work bench for it, and three months later, I was addicted.”
Following that, Dr. Bell took time during three summers to go to a wood-training school in Indiana. He spent a week each year learning new techniques and listening to famous wood-turners from around the world teach their craft.
Yes, he had become somewhat obsessed, but that’s what retirement is for. “I had no intention of selling anything. I just wanted to play,” he said. “It’s my hobby – fishing and woodturning, that’s what I do.”
He went on: “In the interim, my wife died, and I was just going to be an old curmudgeon,” he said. “And I turned and turned and turned. Then finally, my daughter convinced me that I was running out of room. She said, ‘All these things, you either need to sell them or give them away.’ ”
Starting a business was more than Dr. Bell felt he could handle, however. He did eventually set up a limited liability company, but dealing with credit cards and checks was “an enormous pain in the neck,” he said.
“Then I met someone. And we are now engaged. Then she started after me.” She agreed there was too much wooden artwork in the house. That voice of reason belongs to Dr. Deanne Rife, a dentist and partner in the Englewood practice of Davis, Roberts, Boeller and Rife.
What neither his daughter nor his fiancé were able to accomplish, Hurricane Ian was. The hurricane did not damage the artwork, but it did blow open a door to a new opportunity to move it out of the house and into the homes of others who would appreciate its beauty and functionality.
After the hurricane, Dr. Bell received a phone call from Lewis Carlisle, a Boca Grande resident who lives on the south end.
“I didn’t know Lewis, but he called me one day and he asked if I was the man who does wood turning. I said, ‘Yes, sir. I am,’ and he asked if he could come see me. He wanted to see what I did, because he was going to start wood turning, making pens – that’s how you start in woodturning – so I showed him what I had, and said I’d be glad to help him any way I could. A connection was made.”
Lewis had some burls he had cut off some large Australian pines that had been blown down in the hurricane. He wanted to know if Dr. Bell could make anything from that wood.
Dr. Bell explained to Lewis that Australian pines are not pine trees. They are oaks, and their wood is as hard as African black ironwood.
“But I’ll try,” he said, and he took a piece of the wood to see what he could make of it.
“It took me a month to turn it,” Dr. Bell said. “It was so hard!” While that project was still in motion, Lewis called and wanted Dr. Bell to meet someone. It was Carol Mack, one of the artists from the Boca Grande Art Center.
Lewis had told her of the beautiful work Dr. Bell was doing, so Carol wanted to see it up close. Dr. Bell took his visitors to his basement “mother-in-law apartment,” which is filled like a warehouse with beautiful bowls, vases, platters and more, turned from a variety of woods and finished in creative ways, some with colored resins added to fill holes and add texture and color.
Carol pronounced her verdict: “Well, you’re going to join the Art Center.” Dr. Bell said, “I am?” And she said, “Yes, you are.” He is not much of a joiner, so this was a big step.
Carol explained all about the Art Center, but Bell hesitated. “I would rather give things away than deal with bookkeeping,” he told her. But Carol said the Art Center would make the business aspects simple for him.
“We have shows,” she said. “You bring your things to the show, and we will sell them and you get 85 percent and we get 15 percent. You get a 1099 at the end of the year.”
And Dr. Bell said, “I think I’m in love with you!” And that’s how Dr. Bell became an active member of the Boca Grande Art Center, doing shows, selling his pieces, and letting the Art Center handle the details.
“I love to fish. I love to turn wood. I’m engaged to a lovely lady. We have a wonderful life together. Couldn’t be happier.”
He added, “We’re going to try and get married one of these days, when our children can both be here at the same time. But we’re not in a hurry.”
It’s already been five years, but neither of them is anxious about it. They redesigned the inside of the house together and have gone through a couple of hurricanes together. The wedding will happen eventually.
“I’m 76 and retired,” he said. He also said he is taking a page from Clint Eastwood’s playbook.
When Eastwood was asked how he could manage to make a new movie now that he is more than 90 years old, he responded, “Well, son, I get up every morning at 6 o’clock, drink a cup of coffee, and I don’t let the old man in.” Dr. Bell said, “I’ve also decided I’m not going to let him in. My life’s not exciting, but it’s fun. I love doing what I do.”
