As I read the many comments in response to the recent news about Fonville Press, I’m moved by your reactions and touched that the virtues that I instilled inside its walls are now held dear by so many. Most of you don’t know me, but I poured Fonville’s first cup and served her first customer. Inside the graceful architecture of Erik and Marieanne Khoury-Vogt, I birthed this architectural monument to community and sanctioned it a place where friends, families and artists could converge and find their healing, their voice, their connection.
Fonville Press is now 14 years old – an adolescent. She was first inspired as a “third-place” by the new urbanism movement, then born to an idea by the Town Founder of Alys Beach. Soon after, Fonville Press was architected by Khoury-Vogt Architects and formed by Wave Construction into the iconic masterpiece that we all love, in honor of its namesake – John Fonville.
John was a neighbor of the Stephens family in Seagrove, where both families vacationed decades. His last name, Fonville, is reminiscent of community; and, Press, like a newspaper press, is a reflection of John’s love for the written word. His residence in Seagrove was the first off-site storage spot for our coffee cups in the early years. Still filled with memorabilia and furnishings from his family, I will never forget peering into the mirror of the master bathroom. My face was framed by loving messages to his wife that Mr. Fonville had typed, cut out and taped as slender strips of paper onto the mirror. Poetry, literature and John’s rapture for the beauty of his bride, emanated around my reflection in the mirror as a sort of headdress. The essence of his affinity for prose would be personified by KVA into the design of the east entrance of Fonville Press, where you will see the inscription – READ (to) LIVE.
I founded Fonville Press in 2005 with the approval and understanding that she would be a gathering place for all; and, an amenity for Alys Beach that would be subsidized as such. A newsstand, bookstore, and coffeehouse, Fonville Press was not conceived to be a revenue generator and this would become her downfall.
In the early days, corporatism, lust and envy enveloped Fonville and forced me out, but not before her foundation was laid. I poured the story of her beginnings and the agony of losing her into writing a musical, called MY BARISTA!, and willed myself to swing open her doors and welcome each operator who would occupy the space that I had created.
Over the years, I stood silently by as she passed from hand to hand, expanding and contracting. Fonville came to represent the problematic red line on a budget to each operator whose direction she fell under. Some treated her cruelly. Others sought to tear her down. Her origins were forgotten. But with Joe and his team, she found redemption. Fonville Press revitalized into the gathering place you love today. Well watered and flourishing, she grew from her roots. Under Joe’s leadership, Fonville held her best years.
Now, the winds of change have ushered Jenifer Kuntz in to see to her maturation. I’ve no doubt that Fonville will remain steadfast in her service to you. She is stalwart like that. I have confidence in Ms. Kuntz and the people who chose her for the task, she is most capable of providing this service to you as a seasoned and soulful food and beverage operator. I hope you give her the opportunity to prove this to you. If anyone can do it, she can. Too, remember that the underpinnings of new urbanism and Scenic Highway 30A are its mom-and-pop retailers who imbibe our communities with passion through their businesses. Theirs are the familiar faces that we love to return to and whose lifestyles we admire. Our retailers are the lifeblood of our towns and the heartbeat of our walkable communities. As some of our original 30A purveyors begin selling out to chains or conglomerates, it is refreshing that Alys Beach has taken the opposite approach by placing Fonville Press into the hands of a local entrepreneur. A return to these foundational underpinnings is a reflection of the core values of Seaside, whose ecosystem has incubated small businesses and paved the way for Rosemary Beach and Alys Beach to exsist.
I have missed Fonville desperately, as you now do. It is up to all of you now to support this establishment for what it represents in your life, to your friends and family…to your day. I hope that you will continue to love her fervently, as I also do. In that, her great spirit will stay alive…and thrive, as she steps into her newest adventure.
Warmly,
Anne Hunter
P.S. I hope you enjoy the photos below by Jack Gardner of Fonville in her early years; and, a few by me of the “Press” under construction.
Cover Photo of Fonville Press by Brandan Babineaux
