This time of year, when a sleigh bell jingles, chances are that the bell was created in Connecticut.
East Hampton bell manufacturer Bevin Bros. has produced bells in the state for nearly 200 years. Bevin Bros. made the “It’s a Wonderful Life” bell from the timeless 1946 Christmas film and also the cowbell from the “Saturday Night Live” “More Cowbell” sketch starring Will Ferrell.
Bevin Bros. president Cici Bevin said the company, located at 17 Watrous St., is the last remaining dedicated bell factory in the country. It began in 1832 with four Bevin brothers, William, Chauncey, Abner and Philo. Bevin descends from one of those four brothers.
Bevin, 62, said she did not grow up in the business and that the factory has not always gone from father to son. Bevin Bros. is now in its sixth generation, and former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is the company owner.
“My cousin became governor of Kentucky in 2015, and I thought this could be my opportunity,” Cici Bevin said. “I reached out to him and just said, hey, you may want another Bevin. You’re not going to have time to focus on this company. I joined the company with no job description, no nothing to try to sort of find my way and after not too long became a manager and eventually president of the company.”
According to yearly estimates, the company produces 600,000 sleigh bells, between 30,000 and 40,000 cowbells, 100,000 Christmas bells ornaments and 300 yacht bells.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the bell business surprisingly enough because you know there’s probably not a lot of products out there except maybe the wheel that is a more mature market than bells, right?” Cici Bevin said. “It’s a kind of market where you think you would just see very minimal if any growth, stagnation, but we’ve seen a lot of growth.”
“It’s brought us into the black and out of the red,” she added. “We’re not wildly profitable and nobody’s building mansions on the hill anymore on this company. But it’s solid and it’s doing well. We are really focusing on sales and after my father left the company nobody really focused on that for decades.”
Cici Belvin said the company has persevered since 1832 because ownership “had no quit in them.” The introduction of the electric bell was one of the “pivots for the company” as cash registers, doorbells and ice cream trucks went electric.
“Before the electric bell, our raw materials would come in on 18 wheelers full of raw materials for a single bell order. That’s the kind of volume this company was doing. The electric bell really changed all of that. I’m sure a bunch of companies went out at that time that didn’t withstand it. We did,” she said. “There were certainly times, I think if any financial person had stepped in, that they would have said you’ve got to shut this down.”
The second pivot point was in the 1970s and ’80s when foreign competition emerged as competition and copied the Bevin Bells.
“There was a time when the company was trying to really match pricing with the Chinese or the foreign imports, and you know that wasn’t a good situation. There were times where it was really a struggle to meet payroll,” Cici Bevin said.
Another challenge in recent years was when the original location of Bevin Bros. on Bevin Road burnt to the ground in 2012. Luckily, a manufacturing building nearby allowed the company to move in with all new equipment and begin producing bells again three weeks later. The new location is significantly smaller with 23,000 square feet. The original factory was 100,000 square feet.
Bevin said Connecticut has been great place to do business and praised the support of Gov. Ned Lamont and the former Connecticut chief manufacturing officer Paul Lavoie.
“They’ve created is a culture and a way for manufacturers to find support, to create networks,” Cici Bevin said. ” There’s any number of people on any given day that I can reach out to for advice and for help. We’ve gotten a significant amount of funding for new initiatives. They’re trying to help companies. just like mine, small to mid-size manufacturing, to really succeed.”
Cici Bevin said the state is funding 30% of improvements to help move the factory toward modernization. She said this month, the company is launching its first major digitalization of the factory which includes software development and purchasing equipment.
”That’s going to completely transform the way we do our production planning and how our workers get their jobs done and how we track output, profitability and inventor,” Cici Bevin said. “This program that’s been custom built for us and is going to help us make all of those decisions and to be able to see not just the financial implications, but the production and throughput implications of it. It’s going to be amazing. I’m very excited.”
Cici Bevin said the company has a wide customer base, including providing the bells inside every mine in the world. The bell is considered safety equipment when all else fails. The “It’s a Wonderful Life” bell is among the best sellers because it resonates emotionally with a lot of people. She said that particular bell is the most involved in its creation. On average, it takes about four weeks with several steps.
“We stamp it in our factory, then we send it to somebody else to buff it to take out all of the scratches and make it perfectly shiny,” Cici Bevin said. “We then send it to somebody else who engraves the words ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ on it. And then we send it to a third place who silver plates it. And then it comes back to us, and we put all of the different pieces together and assemble it and all.”
Bevin Bros. also produces boxing bells that mark the end of each round, and the company still sells ice cream truck bells in Latin American as well as for bikes and food carts in South America.
“Those are some of the unexpected uses of our bells,” Bevin said. “Right here in Connecticut, the Essex Steam Train bought 40,000 bells from us. We have huge business with trains all over the country that do Santa rides based on the ‘Polar Express’ movie. The Salvation Army is also big business for us.”
Bevin Bros. produces bells for every Salvation Army bell ringer around the country each holiday season.
“The red kettle and the bell ringing is iconic this time of year and you see those bells outside of stores after Thanksgiving into December. It’s a part of Christmas and Bevin supplies those bells, not just in Connecticut but the entire country,” said Salvation Army spokesperson Michael Baldelli.
The Salvation Army purchases bells from Bevin Bros. each year. Baldelli, who has worked for the Salvation Army for 10 years, said there are Bevin Bells at the Salvation Army that are 40 or 50 years old. The Bevin name is engraved on the clacker.
Cici Bevin said the company remains razor focused on the future and driving the company forward to be more profitable and to be able to employ more people.
“I just always want to stress to people is we love our history,” Cici Bevin said. “But we’re not just sitting back enjoying our reputation. We’re really driving for modernization. We’re really driving to transform the company and keep it relevant and keep it growing and keep it profitable so we can continue to be a good, strong employer in the state. We just have a fabulous employee base that I love, and I feel very committed to making this company successful for them too.”