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Page & Palette Timeline

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Page & Palette Timeline 〰️

1894

Fairhope is Founded

The Book That Inspired Fairhope

Fairhope’s literary story begins with a book. Published in 1879, Henry George’s Progress and Poverty became the second bestselling book of its time after the Bible. It examined why poverty continued to grow even as societies became wealthier and proposed that land value created by a community should benefit the community.

Inspired by George’s ideas, a group of reformers established the Fairhope Single Tax Colony on November 15, 1894. More than seventy years before Page & Palette opened, a book helped inspire the founding of the town it would eventually call home.

1898

A Novelist Brings Her Library to Fairhope

Marie Howland Comes to Fairhope

Marie Howland came to Fairhope in 1898, drawn by the new colony’s experiment in what founder E. B. Gaston called “Cooperative Individualism.”

Howland had already lived an extraordinary life. She worked in a cotton mill as a child, became a teacher, newspaper editor, columnist, feminist and advocate for economic independence for women. Her experiences living in an experimental community in France inspired her best known novel, Papa’s Own Girl, published in 1874.

The novel challenged traditional ideas about class, marriage, domestic labor and the limited economic choices available to women. Its heroine grows into an independent businesswoman within a cooperative community. The book was enormously popular and influential. Elizabeth Cady Stanton later said she would rather have written Papa’s Own Girl than been the mother of half the children in America. The novel was republished as The Familistère in 1918.

Howland arrived in Fairhope with the book collection she and her late husband, Edward Howland, had assembled over many years. She opened her home and collection to the community, then donated the books to the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation in 1900. Her home became the Fairhope Free Public Library and Howland served as Fairhope’s first librarian.

Fairhope’s earliest literary history was therefore not merely about writers living here. It was about a writer placing books directly into the hands of her new community.

1900

A Library Begins at The Pines

Fairhope’s First Public Library Opens

On April 18, 1900, Marie Howland opened her home, The Pines, and her personal collection of books to the Fairhope community. Her parlor became the Fairhope Free Public Library and Howland became the town’s first librarian.

The collection had traveled an extraordinary distance. Marie and her late husband, Edward Howland, had gathered books from Amsterdam, Leipzig, Paris, Oxford and London. The books followed them from New Jersey to an experimental community in Topolobampo, Mexico, then eventually to Fairhope.

Neighbors built shelves and bookcases as the collection expanded from the parlor onto the porch. By 1902, the library held 1,662 books. Of those, 898 came from the Howland collection and 764 had been donated by community members and supporters. During its first recorded year, the library circulated approximately 450 books and periodicals.

The Pines served as Fairhope’s library until 1908, when the growing collection moved into a separate library building on Summit Street. What began inside one woman’s home established a public library tradition that continues in Fairhope today.

1907

A New Way to Learn

Marietta Johnson Establishes the School of Organic Education

Marietta Johnson established the School of Organic Education in Fairhope in 1907. She believed education should follow the natural stages of a child’s development instead of forcing every child into the same rigid system.

The school eliminated conventional grades and examinations and emphasized creativity, movement, nature, handwork and learning through experience. Johnson’s experiment attracted educators, writers and reformers to Fairhope and strengthened the town’s reputation as a center of progressive thought.

Johnson later became a nationally recognized lecturer and author on progressive education. Her writing included Youth in a World of Men, published in 1929. She and her work are honored on the Fairhope Literary Walk.

1908

A Permanent Home for Fairhope’s Library

Fairhope Builds Its First Public Library Building

By 1908, the public library Marie Howland had operated from her home, The Pines, had outgrown its original space. Fairhope residents used volunteer labor and donated materials to construct the town’s first building dedicated exclusively to the public library.

The one-room library stood on Summit Street and served the community until 1983. Marie Howland continued as Fairhope’s librarian until 1917, extending the literary tradition she began when she first opened her personal collection to the public in 1900.

1908

Upton Sinclair Comes to Fairhope

Upton Sinclair arrived in Fairhope with his wife, Meta and their son, David, in the fall of 1908. Sinclair was already internationally known for The Jungle, his 1906 novel exposing conditions in the meatpacking industry and helping build public pressure for major federal food safety reforms.

During the winter of 1909, the family rented a cottage on Fairhope’s bayfront. David attended Marietta Johnson’s School of Organic Education, connecting one of America’s most prominent reform writers to Fairhope’s progressive educational movement.

While living in Fairhope, Sinclair wrote The Naturewoman, a play he later included in his 1912 collection, Plays of Protest. His time in the community joined Fairhope’s founding ideals, educational experimentation and emerging literary identity in one remarkable chapter.

Sinclair and The Jungle are honored on the Fairhope Literary Walk.

1913

John Dewey Visits Fairhope

John Dewey Visits Fairhope’s Organic School

Following John Dewey’s 1913 visit to Fairhope, he and his daughter, Evelyn Dewey, devoted an entire chapter of Schools of To-Morrow to Marietta Johnson’s School of Organic Education.

Published in May 1915, the book examined experimental schools that were challenging conventional approaches to education. The Fairhope chapter presented Johnson’s belief that education should follow the natural development of the child and emphasized learning through movement, creativity, outdoor activity and experience.

Their account introduced Fairhope’s educational experiment to a national audience and helped establish Johnson as an important figure in the progressive education movement. Although the original cover names only John Dewey, the title page credits John Dewey and Evelyn Dewey as coauthors.

1929

Marietta Johnson Shares Her Vision

Marietta Johnson Publishes Youth in a World of Men

Marietta Johnson published Youth in a World of Men: The Child, the Parent and the Teacher in 1929. The book presented the educational philosophy she had developed through more than two decades at Fairhope’s School of Organic Education.

Johnson argued that education should respond to the natural development of the child rather than force children into a rigid adult system. She emphasized the growth of the whole child, body, mind and spirit, through creativity, movement, nature and experience.

The book carried ideas developed in Fairhope beyond the classroom and preserved Johnson’s place in the progressive education movement. Johnson and her work are honored on the Fairhope Literary Walk.

1959

Fairhope Becomes Moss Bayou

Robert E. Bell Publishes The Butterfly Tree

Robert E. Bell published The Butterfly Tree in 1959. The novel is set in Moss Bayou, a fictional town inspired by Fairhope, where Bell’s family had moved in 1947.

Organized around the four seasons, the story follows Peter Abbott and four unusual characters searching for a mysterious butterfly tree. Bell blended his affection for Fairhope’s landscape with the mythology and symbolism that later became central to his scholarly work.

The original first edition featured a dust jacket designed by Andy Warhol, giving this distinctly Fairhope novel an unexpected connection to one of the twentieth century’s most recognizable artists. The University of Alabama Press returned the novel to print in 1991.

Bell and The Butterfly Tree are honored on the Fairhope Literary Walk.

1962

A Prolific Author Comes to Fairhope

W. E. B. Griffin Comes to Fairhope

After his third novel was published in 1962, William E. Butterworth III left his civilian position at Fort Rucker to write full time and moved to Fairhope.

His first novel, Comfort Me with Love, began an extraordinary career spanning more than 250 books published under his own name and numerous pen names. Writing as William E. Butterworth, he coauthored the popular series of M*A*S*H sequel novels with Richard Hooker.

In 1982, The Lieutenants launched his bestselling Brotherhood of War series and introduced readers to the name W. E. B. Griffin. He later published more than 60 military and political novels as Griffin, including The Corps and Badge of Honor series. His books sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.

His wife, Emma Macalik Butterworth, was also an author and calligrapher. She published The Complete Book of Calligraphy in 1980 and As the Waltz Was Ending, a memoir of her childhood as a ballet student in wartime Vienna, in 1982.

Griffin also gave Fairhope one of its most enduring descriptions: “Welcome to Fairhope, the Home of More Writers than Readers.”

Griffin and his work are honored on Page & Palette’s Fairhope Literary Walk.

1966

Grand Opening Page & Palette

Corky Shermer and Gloria Bell opened Page & Palette at 219 Fairhope Avenue in the Huffman Building, offering books and art supplies. The grand opening was held April 8 and 9, 1966.

1971

Page & Palette Begins Publishing

Page & Palette Publishes History of Baldwin County

Page & Palette publishes the third edition of Kay Nuzum’s A History of Baldwin County. The paperback becomes a longstanding part of the bookstore’s local history collection, with hundreds of copies carried and sold over many years.

The publication marks the beginning of Page & Palette’s long history as a publisher, expanding its role from selling books to helping preserve and share the stories of Fairhope and the surrounding community.

1973

The Wolff Family Story Begins

Betty Joe Wolff Purchases Page & Palette

Betty Joe Wolff began her family’s ownership of Page & Palette when she purchased the bookstore with Fairhope artist Jo Patton. Patton left soon after the purchase to pursue painting full time, but remained connected to Page & Palette as a featured artist for many years.

The bookstore operated from the house immediately south of its present location on South Section Street.

The surrounding property was later developed by Bessie Montgomery as Fairhope’s French Quarter. The original house still stands between the French Quarter entrance and Page & Palette and is now home to 4 Bags Boutique at 40 South Section Street.

Betty Joe’s purchase began the Wolff family’s documented ownership of Page & Palette, a story that continues through four generations.

1975

A Permanent Home for Page & Palette

The Wolff Family Acquires 32 South Section Street

On June 23, 1975, Betty Joe and Robert Wolff acquired the property at 32 South Section Street through a transfer from Bessie Montgomery approved by the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation.

Because the land was owned by the FSTC, the transaction transferred the leasehold interest and improvements rather than ownership of the underlying land. The acquisition gave the Wolff family a permanent downtown home for Page & Palette.

By February 1976, store correspondence documents Page & Palette operating at 32 South Section Street. The address became central to the bookstore’s growth.

1975

Robbie Wolff Adds Custom Framing and an Art Gallery

Robbie Wolff returned to Fairhope in 1975 after college and a period teaching at Troy State University. He expanded Page & Palette by adding custom framing and an art gallery to the bookstore’s growing selection of books and art supplies.

1978

Creative Outlet Opens Above Page & Palette

In 1978, 22-year-old Gina Lanaux opened Creative Outlet in the upstairs space at Page & Palette after earning her degree in dance education. Her father co-signed the loan and helped her learn the practical side of operating a business.

Creative Outlet began as a school for many forms of artistic expression, offering dance, piano, calligraphy, guitar, tai chi and drama. After about a year, dance became its primary focus and the program grew from approximately 20 students into a lasting Fairhope institution.

Karin Wolff became Gina’s first student, with her twin sister Kelley among the studio’s earliest students. Karin continued dancing with Creative Outlet through high school.

When Gina hired a sign painter to place the Creative Outlet name on the entrance door, she discovered that he had accidentally painted “Creature Outlet.” The mistake was corrected, but the story became a fitting memory of the many young “dancing creatures” who climbed the stairs over the years.

Creative Outlet provided a foundational space for dance and community arts in Fairhope, eventually evolving into today’s Creative Outlet Dance Academy at 66 South Section Street.

1978

A Fairhope classic becomes required reading

Judith Richards Publishes Summer Lightning

Fairhope novelist Judith Richards publishes Summer Lightning in 1978. Although a novel, the story was inspired by the real childhood adventures of her husband, fellow Fairhope novelist C. Terry Cline Jr., who grew up skipping school and exploring the Everglades around Belle Glade, Florida. The book became a worldwide success, was selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest and was published internationally in numerous languages.

For generations of local students, Summer Lightning also became part of growing up in Fairhope, where it was assigned reading in Fairhope schools. Richards and Cline made their home in Fairhope and became an important part of the community's literary life.

Judith Richards on Page & Palette:

“When I moved to Fairhope in 1977, Page & Palette owner Betty Joe Wolff was the first to welcome me and my husband, C. Terry Cline, Jr., as another of Fairhope's writers. Back then Betty Joe's granddaughters, Karin and Kelly, were little girls, often in the store or on summer days out front selling lemonade. Now Karin (Wilson) is running the shop, and her young daughters are known to her customers. Page & Palette is still a family business after 40 years...and a bookstore that understands and supports its writers and readers. I love that. Happy 40th anniversary Page & Palette! Best wishes into the next century.”
~Judith Richards

1978

Robbie Wolff Jr. brings Fairhope retailers together

Robbie Wolff Jr. Organizes Fairhope Merchants

Fairhope retailers incorporate the Fairhope Retail Merchants Association, with Page & Palette’s Robbie Wolff serving as its founding president. His mother, longtime Page & Palette owner Betty Joe Wolff, was also a charter member and organizer.

The nonprofit association was created to promote unity and cooperation among Fairhope merchants. Its members worked together to strengthen local shopping, improve customer service and make residents and visitors more aware of the exceptional businesses found in Fairhope.

Robbie understood that independent businesses were stronger when they worked together. The association also sought to support the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce and developed a shared logo that members could display in their stores.

That early collaboration helped lay the foundation for the organization now known as the Downtown Fairhope Business Association, which continues promoting downtown businesses and the importance of shopping locally.

1979

Page & Palette Weathers the Storm

Hurricane Frederic Strikes Page & Palette

Hurricane Frederic struck Alabama’s Gulf Coast during the night of September 12, 1979, bringing destructive winds and widespread damage to Fairhope.

Karin and Kelley Wolff sheltered with their family inside Page & Palette as the hurricane passed. The storm tore away the building’s storefront awning, shattered windows and scattered wreckage across the sidewalk and surrounding streets.

In the attached photographs, Robbie Wolff, Robert Sr and Barrow Straughn clear pieces of the destroyed awning from outside the store.

During the rebuilding that followed, the lost awning was replaced by the balcony that became one of the building’s most recognizable features.

1980

Page & Palette Becomes a Publisher

Page & Palette Publishes Dealer’s Choice

In 1980, Page & Palette and Wingfeather Press published the first edition of Colonel Tom Kelly’s Dealer’s Choice. Their names appear together on the book’s title page, confirming Page & Palette’s role and marking the bookstore’s first documented year on the publishing side of the book business.

Dealer’s Choice was Kelly’s second book. He became best known for Tenth Legion, his 1973 classic about wild turkey hunting and the people devoted to it. His writing blended outdoor knowledge, Southern storytelling and wonderfully dry humor.

Wingfeather Press issued a second printing of Dealer’s Choice in 1983.

1981

Fannie Flagg’s Very First Signing

Fannie Flagg Holds Her First Novel Signing at Page & Palette

In 1981, Fannie Flagg held the first signing for her first novel, Coming Attractions, at Page & Palette. The event brought together two women at the beginning of important new chapters, Flagg as a novelist and Betty Joe Wolff as the owner of a growing independent bookstore.

Written through letters and diary entries, Coming Attractions follows the spirited Daisy Fay Harper as she grows up along the Gulf Coast during the 1950s. The novel introduced the humor, Southern characters and emotional honesty that would become hallmarks of Flagg’s writing. It was later republished under the title Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man.

The signing began a friendship between Flagg, Betty Joe and the Page & Palette family that extended far beyond a single event. Flagg returned to the bookstore for later appearances and became one of its closest literary friends. Karin and Kelley grew up knowing her as part of the extended Page & Palette family.

Flagg went on to write Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and other bestselling novels celebrating friendship, memory, resilience and Southern life. Her relationship with Page & Palette remained rooted in that first gathering around Coming Attractions.

Decades later, the story came full circle when Page & Palette selected Coming Attractions for a special commemorative edition celebrating the bookstore’s 60th anniversary.

"Not only is Page and Palette my favorite independent bookstore in the world, it also happens to be my very own hometown bookstore! As an author, I can truly say that book signings at Page & Palette are always a joy and great fun for me, and as a customer, I really appreciate the friendly and knowledgeable staff always ready to help me find what I need. Located on the beautiful Mobile Bay, Fairhope Alabama is listed as one of the most charming towns in America, and any trip to Fairhope would not be complete without a visit to Page and Palette. Located in the heart of downtown, the bookstore is an old-fashioned, family run establishment that through years of hard work and excellent service has now become one of the most successful bookstores in the country."
~ Fannie Flagg

1983

Longtime Fairhoper Publishes First Novel

Roy Hoffman Publishes Almost Family

In 1983, while living and working in New York City, Mobile native and longtime Fairhope resident Roy Hoffman published his first novel, Almost Family.

Set in Alabama, the novel follows Nebraska Waters, a Black housekeeper, and Vivian Gold, her Jewish employer. Across three decades, the two women share coffee, family concerns and an evolving friendship shaped by differences in race, religion, income and social position.

Beginning in 1946 and continuing through the civil rights era, Almost Family places their private lives against the historic changes transforming the South. The novel explores the understanding that develops between the women as well as the barriers created by prejudice and an unequal society.

Almost Family received the 1983 Lillian Smith Book Award for its contribution to race relations and the 1984 Alabama Author Award for fiction. A 35th-anniversary edition was published by the University of Alabama Press in 2018.

After spending two decades in New York, Hoffman returned to Alabama in 1996 and later settled in Fairhope, where he has lived for many years. He became a novelist, essayist and longtime journalist whose writing explores the people, history and cultural complexity of the Gulf Coast and the American South.

Roy Hoffman congraulating a Page & Palette milestone:

“It's said these days that 40's the new 30, but in terms of independent bookstores, I'd say that 40 is the new 100. How wonderful that such a special, homey, and intellectually exhilarating family bookstore keeps on keeping on. Like Fairhope Pier which is more than just a place to fish, you're a community crossroads, Page & Palette, and for that we lift a glass of champagne in your name.”
~ Roy Hoffman

1985

Fairhope novelist and longtime Page & Palette author

C. Terry Cline Jr. Signs Prey at Page & Palette

Fairhope novelist C. Terry Cline Jr. signs copies of Prey at Page & Palette with bookstore owner Betty Joe Wolff in 1985. Cline's literary career had begun a decade earlier with the 1975 psychological thriller Damon, his first novel and the beginning of a successful career writing suspense and psychological fiction. He later made Fairhope his home with his wife, novelist Judith Richards, becoming part of the community of writers that helped establish Fairhope's enduring literary reputation. This photograph preserves Cline's own connection to Page & Palette and the bookstore's long tradition of bringing writers and readers together.

Terry Cline on Page & Palette:

“For forty years Page and Palette has been a nurturing breast to suckling artists and authors. The attentive and friendly staff knows the hard pinched look of an aspiring writer and they are quick to respond with the kind of attention a struggling wannabe needs in the early stages of a career that has not yet blossomed. Among their clients are authors and artists who are world-class talents. Fairhope is home to dozens of creative souls whose work was displayed and promoted by Bob and Betty Joe Wolff, and now by Karin and Kiefer Wilson. Today, forty years after the doors opened at Page & Palette, the grandchildren continue the task in this remarkable independent bookstore.
No author is unknown here. On a given day one might encounter Jimmy Buffett, W.E.B. Griffin, Winston Groom or Fannie Flagg, browsing through the gift cards and books section. I ran into the actor Tommy Lee Jones here, when he was filing at the battleship U.S.S. Alabama. A customer asked, “Don’t I know you?” Tommy Lee Jones said, “No, I don’t think so.” “Didn’t you go to school in Foley?” she asked. “No, ma’am, I didn’t.” “Have you ever lived in Gulf Shores?” “No ma’am, it wasn’t me.”
When Mr. Jones walked out, everybody said, “That was Tommy Lee Jones the actor!” The lady said, “I think he went to school in Foley.”
There’s no great bookstore, and no finer family tradition than Page & Palette and the family that has made it the fabulous place it has become to readers and writers.
Page & Palette, Thanks for everything.”
~ C. Terry Cline, Jr.

1985

Page & Palette expands beyond Fairhope

In 1985, Page & Palette begins expanding beyond Fairhope.

Betty Joe Wolff’s daughter, Donna Wolff Anderson, had already been part of Page & Palette for years when she opened and operated the family’s Pensacola location.

That same period brought a Page & Palette to Coquina Village in Perdido Key, Florida. Betty Joe’s granddaughters, Karin and Kelley Wolff, worked at the beach store during their college summers, with Karin helping manage the location.

The successful Gulf Coast store later moved from Perdido Key to Orange Beach, Alabama, where it continued operating for many years. Near the end of its run, Donna again became part of the beach location.

Around 2000, Karin and Kiefer Wilson opened a Page & Palette in Daphne. The store operated for nearly three years, but the experience revealed how difficult it was to divide their attention without taking something away from what they were building in Fairhope.

When a hurricane later brought the Orange Beach chapter to an end, Betty Joe and Donna decided to close the location. By then, Betty Joe was older and Karin chose not to fold another store into the Fairhope operation.

The decision reflected what the family had learned across decades of expansion: Page & Palette’s identity could not be duplicated simply by placing its name and books in another town.

Its character came from the relationships, author events, family history and continual reinvention rooted in one particular place.

The Pensacola, Perdido Key, Orange Beach and Daphne stores remain important chapters in Page & Palette’s history. Their ultimate lesson was not that the family should stop growing. It was that concentrating on the Fairhope store was the only way to protect what made Page & Palette special while allowing its story to keep evolving.

The Daphne store was successful, growing exponentially each year of its short life. But every hour spent building it was an hour taken from what Page & Palette was becoming in Fairhope. Walking away from a thriving business was a difficult decision, but it became one of the most important lessons in our family’s history. Had we not chosen to concentrate our time, energy and imagination in Fairhope, Page & Palette might never have become what it is today.

1986

Winston Groom introduces Forrest Gump

Winston Groom Publishes Forrest Gump

Winston Groom publishes Forrest Gump, the comic novel narrated by an unlikely hero from Mobile, Alabama. Groom returned to Alabama in 1985 and made his longtime home in Point Clear, with a Fairhope address on Mobile Bay. Page & Palette was his local bookstore, and he became a beloved part of Fairhope’s literary community.

Then continue:

Forrest was a fictional character assembled from several influences, but Groom’s close lifelong friend Jimbo Meador inspired some of his most recognizable qualities. Jimbo, a highly intelligent Point Clear outdoorsman, was an avid runner and spent years in the shrimping business. His distinctive accent and mannerisms also helped shape Forrest’s voice.

When the novel was adapted for film, Tom Hanks’s dialect coach recorded conversations with Jimbo and used them to coach Hanks in what she called the “Point Clear accent.” Jimbo inspired important elements of Forrest, but not the character’s intellectual limitations. Groom dedicated the novel to Jimbo Meador and another lifelong friend, George Radcliff.

Groom described Page & Palette this way:

“Page & Palette, legendary for its warmth and excellent coffee, is not only the hub of lovely Fairhope and the meeting place for the many local writers, it’s a home away from home for authors the world over. Distinguish yourself and go there now!”

1986

Robbie Wolff Commissions Stig Marcussen to Capture Baldwin County

In December 1986, Robbie Wolff commissions 27-year-old artist Stig Marcussen to spend a year traveling Baldwin County and documenting its people, landscapes and distinctive ways of life through paintings and pen-and-ink drawings.

Robbie had fallen in love with Stig’s work and recognized his extraordinary potential. He arranged for the artist to live in the fourplex owned by Betty Joe Wolff, giving him a home base while he traveled and worked.

Robbie’s daughters, high school twins Karin and Kelley Wolff, remember Stig joining the family for dinner during the project. At the time, they did not fully understand that they were watching one of the many visionary ideas for which their father would become known.

Robbie’s inspiration came partly from witnessing how quickly Hurricane Frederick changed the community in 1979.

“After Hurricane Frederick, I realized how quickly things can change,” Robbie explained in a newspaper article about the commission.

He described the collection as “a slice of life of Baldwin County as it is right now.”

Through the project, Robbie sought to preserve scenes and traditions that might otherwise disappear. Stig’s finished collection captured Baldwin County through the eyes of an emerging artist and the vision of the man who recognized his talent.

One of only a few surviving pieces from the project in our family’s private collection is a pen-and-ink drawing Stig created from Page & Palette’s balcony, looking south. It captures the neighboring house where the bookstore was once located and Greer’s beyond it. Stig’s exhibition and the remarkable success that followed will appear later in the timeline.

1988

Robbie Wolff Presents Stig Marcussen’s Extraordinary Portrait of Baldwin County

Baldwin County Portrait reveals the full scale of Robbie Wolff’s vision: an artistic record of the people, landscapes, buildings and ways of life that defined Baldwin County before growth changed them forever.

The collection includes more than 800 paintings and watercolors, along with approximately 700 drawings. Farms, fishing boats, wildlife, working people and familiar landmarks become part of an extraordinary visual history of the county during the late 1980s.

Although Robbie had separated his framing and gallery business from Page & Palette, the businesses remained part of the same family story. His business occupied the building where Page & Palette later moved and where the bookstore remains today.

For Karin and Kelley Wolff, the completed collection revealed what they had been witnessing as teenagers. Their father had not simply supported a promising young artist. He had envisioned a project of lasting cultural importance and given Stig Marcussen the opportunity to create it.

Stig went on to become a nationally recognized Gulf Coast artist, particularly known for his coastal watercolors and pen-and-ink work. Before Robbie’s death, Stig visited him in the hospital and told him how much Robbie’s belief and support had meant to him personally and to his career.

Baldwin County Portrait remains both an important chapter in Stig Marcussen’s artistic life and a testament to Robbie Wolff’s remarkable ability to recognize talent, imagine what could be and turn that vision into something enduring.

1993

The Story Behind Fairhope's Founding

Paul M. Gaston Publishes Man and Mission

Fairhope native and historian Paul M. Gaston publishes Man and Mission: E. B. Gaston and the Origins of the Fairhope Single Tax Colony. The book traces the intellectual journey of his grandfather, E. B. Gaston, and the ideas that led Gaston and his fellow reformers to establish Fairhope as an experimental community in 1894. Through the story of his own family, Paul Gaston preserves an important account of the beliefs, ambitions and people behind Fairhope's founding.

1997

Rick Bragg Publishes is Celebrated Memoir

Rick Bragg Publishes All Over but the Shoutin’

Rick Bragg publishes All Over but the Shoutin’, his deeply personal memoir about growing up in poverty in northeastern Alabama and the sacrifices his mother made for her sons. The book became a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Bragg has owned a home in Fairhope for decades and has become a cherished part of the Page & Palette family through years of visits, events and friendship. He described the bookstore as:

“...one of the best places on this earth to waste hours browsing for something to read, only to discover that, when you’re done, you haven’t wasted a second.”
~ Rick Bragg

A New Generation Takes the Helm

In September 1997, Karin Wolff Wilson and Kiefer Wilson purchase Page & Palette from Karin's grandmother, Betty Joe Wolff. The transition carries the independent bookstore into another generation of family ownership while continuing the legacy Betty Joe had built in downtown Fairhope.

1997

Third Generation of Ownership

1998

Jimmy Buffett Chronicles Fifty Years of Life and Adventure

Jimmy Buffett Publishes A Pirate Looks at Fifty

In 1998, Jimmy Buffett published A Pirate Looks at Fifty, blending stories from his life with a journey through the Caribbean and Central and South America. The book reached number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list, making Buffett one of the rare authors to top the list in both fiction and nonfiction. Buffett spent childhood summers at his family’s bay house in Fairhope, where the water, boats and rhythms of life along the East

1999

Lyons Share Begins a New Chapter

Framing and Art Gallery Move Next Door

In 1999, one family business makes room for another chapter in the Page & Palette story.

Karin Wilson opens Latte Da inside the bookstore, creating a coffee shop where customers can linger over books, conversations and something warm to drink. What begins as a small addition will become an essential part of the Page & Palette experience and another reason for the community to gather.

At the same time, Karin’s identical twin sister, Kelley Wolff Lyons, and her husband, Mike Lyons, move Lyons Share Custom Framing and Gallery from its space upstairs at Page & Palette into the building they created nearby.

Lyons Share had grown from the family’s deep roots in art, custom framing and creative enterprise. Kelley learned alongside her father, Robbie Wolff, whose galleries, artistic vision and gift for recognizing talent helped shape Fairhope’s early arts community.

The move gave Lyons Share a permanent home of its own while making room for Page & Palette’s next stage of growth. Kelley and Mike continue operating Lyons Share from that same building today.

The two businesses followed different paths, but their stories remain closely connected. One twin continued evolving the family bookstore. The other carried forward the family’s framing and gallery tradition.

Both grew from the same place, the creative world Betty Joe and Robbie Wolff built around books, art, family and community.

1999

Latte Da Brings Coffee and Conversation to Page & Palette

Latte Da Coffee Shop Opens

Karin and Kiefer Wilson open Latte Da inside Page & Palette, adding coffee, conversation and another reason for the community to gather at the bookstore.

2002

Frank Turner Hollon Publishes Award Winning Novel

Frank Turner Hollon Publishes The God File

Longtime Fairhope author and attorney Frank Turner Hollon publishes The God File. The novel follows Gabriel Black, a man serving a prison sentence for a murder he did not commit after taking responsibility for the actions of a woman he loves.

Surrounded by violence and despair, Gabriel begins collecting evidence of God’s existence in a file. His search becomes a powerful examination of faith, sacrifice, hope and what it means to find grace in one of the darkest places imaginable.

The God File was named the 2002 Fiction Book of the Year by the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

What he said about Page & Palette:

“It is a blessing for my children to have grown up knowing the value and joy of a small-town independent bookstore. I hope their children can say the same. May you live forever.”
~ Frank Hollon

2002

Page & Palette Expands its Community Mission

Page & Palette Foundation Begins

Page & Palette establishes the Page & Palette Foundation, transforming the bookstore’s longstanding community role into an organized effort supporting education, literacy and cultural enrichment. Within its first three years, the foundation had already directed more than $100,000 to Fairhope schools and educational programs.

Its signature fundraiser, Dancin’ in the Streets, brought the community downtown for ten years and raised nearly $300,000 for school enrichment programs. The foundation also created Hook ’Em & Keep ’Em, giving approximately 1,200 books each year to fifth graders across seven schools and bringing students together with nationally recognized authors.

As its mission expanded to include healthy living, the organization became the Good Life Foundation, promoting “Fit Minds & Fit Bodies.” It created the Good Life Ride to promote cyclist and pedestrian safety, the Jubilee Kids Triathlon, Run Forrest Run, literary camps and numerous author fundraisers and community events.

By 2016, the foundation’s combined efforts had contributed more than $360,000 to local schools. Several of its signature events were later continued by other community organizations, extending an extraordinary legacy of service that began inside an independent bookstore.

2003

Fairhope Dances to Support its Schools

Page & Palette Foundation Launches Dancin’ in the Streets

On November 15, 2003, the Page & Palette Foundation presents the first Dancin’ in the Streets, turning De La Mare Avenue into an enormous community celebration benefiting Fairhope schools.

The event begins as part of Page & Palette’s thirty-fifth anniversary celebration. Kiefer Wilson, then serving on the board of the Fairhope Educational Enrichment Foundation, presents the plan to the Fairhope City Council. Page & Palette, Lyons Share and Mary Ann’s Deli join together to launch the first street party.

For its first three years, all proceeds benefit FEEF. The third event alone raises more than $26,000. Afterward, the Page & Palette Foundation continues producing Dancin’ in the Streets and directs the money to enrichment programs, libraries and other needs in local public schools.

Dancin’ becomes the foundation’s signature event and its most successful fundraiser. Thousands of people fill downtown Fairhope for live music, food, drinks, an enormous children’s activity area and one of the largest silent auctions on the Eastern Shore.

Each year brings a new theme and an enthusiastic disregard for dignity. Fairhope travels through the decades, dresses for My Big Fat Fairhope Wedding and embraces whatever excuse the Wilson family can find to put the entire town in costume. During the 1970s celebration, towering wigs, tie-dye, enormous sunglasses and questionable fashion choices prove that fundraising need not be respectable to be effective.

Behind the fun is an enormous volunteer effort. Local businesses donate food, drinks, auction items, services and sponsorships, allowing more of the proceeds to reach the schools. Over its long run, Dancin’ in the Streets raises nearly $300,000 for enrichment programs benefiting Fairhope students.

Eventually, increasing City requirements, expenses and logistical demands make the event increasingly difficult for the foundation to continue. Giving up a celebration that had become part of Fairhope’s identity is painful, but Fairhope Sunset Rotary carries it forward and later reshapes it as Oktoberfest.

Dancin’ in the Streets demonstrates what the Page & Palette Foundation was created to do. It gathers an entire community around music, laughter and a shared responsibility for its children, then turns one unforgettable night into opportunities that remain long after the streets are cleared.

2004

Betty Joe Wolff’s Legacy Gives Writers a Home

Wolff Cottage Welcomes Its First Writer

The Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts welcomes Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Rick Bragg as the first writer in residence at Wolff Cottage.

The small mission style cottage had been saved from demolition in 2001 after author Sonny Brewer and other Fairhopians proposed transforming it into a retreat for working writers. The City of Fairhope approved the plan and the newly formed Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts raised the money to restore and furnish it.

The cottage was named in honor of Betty Joe Wolff, whose decades at Page & Palette helped make Fairhope a welcoming home for writers. Sonny Brewer called her “an author’s best friend and advocate.” It was a fitting dedication to the woman who brought countless authors to Fairhope, championed their work and helped build the literary community the cottage continues to serve.

Since Rick Bragg’s first residency in spring 2004, Wolff Cottage has provided a temporary home and quiet writing retreat for more than 89 novelists, journalists, memoirists, screenwriters, songwriters and poets. The program has gained international attention and draws a growing number of applications from writers seeking time to work in Fairhope.

Wolff Cottage remains behind the Fairhope Public Library, welcoming each new writer in the name of Betty Joe Wolff and carrying forward the devotion to authors that defined her life.

2005

A Fairhope Legend Becomes a Novel

Sonny Brewer Publishes The Poet of Tolstoy Park

Fairhope author Sonny Brewer publishes The Poet of Tolstoy Park, his debut novel based on the remarkable life of Henry Stuart.

In 1923, the sixty-seven-year-old former professor arrived in Fairhope after being told his failing health might leave him only a short time to live. On ten wooded acres he called Tolstoy Park, Stuart built a tiny round concrete house with his own hands and began a simpler life devoted to reading, writing and contemplation.

Far from living as a hermit, Stuart welcomed more than a thousand visitors into his unusual home. His guest book included attorney Clarence Darrow. Stuart ultimately lived at Tolstoy Park for nearly two decades, far longer than his doctors had predicted.

Brewer first encountered the little round house in the 1980s and became fascinated by the man who built it. While writing and revising the novel, he lived in the house himself, often barefoot as Stuart had been. Brewer transformed that piece of Fairhope history into a deeply reflective story about mortality, faith and what makes a life meaningful.

The Poet of Tolstoy Park brought national attention to Henry Stuart’s story and turned his remarkable home into a literary destination. Sonny was later instrumental in saving the historic hut and securing its relocation so this singular piece of Fairhope’s history could be preserved.

The novel remains one of the works most closely identified with Fairhope and is still one of Page & Palette’s bestsellers today.

Sonny Brewer described Fairhope this way:

“We’re lucky to be peppered with enough quirky and eccentric characters to keep things spicy. Our rising population sort of waters down the recipe, but Fairhope’s not yet a milquetoast town. We’ve still got flavor. Enough to keep writers and potters and poets and artists inspired and busy.”

Sonny Brewer on Page & Palette:

"Baseball, apple pie, hot dogs...and Page & Palette, of course. Put your hand over your heart when you go inside!"
~ Sonny Brewer

2005

Page & Palette Starts Annual Community Read

Page & Palette Launches One Town One Tale

Page & Palette launches One Town One Tale, a community reading program designed to bring Fairhope together through the shared experience of one exceptional book.

The program was created not simply to promote literacy, but to combat aliteracy, the ability to read without choosing to make reading part of one’s life. Each selection gave the entire community a common story to explore and discuss.

Page & Palette often brought the selected author to Fairhope for public conversations, readings and book signings, allowing readers to meet the person behind the book and engage more deeply with the story.

One Town One Tale became a lasting Page & Palette tradition. The program paused while Karin Wilson served as mayor of Fairhope, but later returned and will continue introducing the community to books worth reading and conversations worth sharing.

2006

Fairhope author publishes Alabama Moon

Fairhope Author Watt Key Publishes Alabama Moon

Fairhope author Watt Key publishes his debut novel, Alabama Moon, the story of ten-year-old Moon Blake, a fiercely independent boy raised by his survivalist father in the Alabama wilderness.

Inspired by Key’s own childhood exploring the woods and waterways around Fairhope, the novel wins the 2007 E. B. White Read-Aloud Award and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award. It is named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and later included on Time magazine’s list of the 100 best young adult books of all time.

In 2009, Alabama Moon becomes a feature film starring Jimmy Bennett, John Goodman, Gabriel Basso, Uriah Shelton and Clint Howard. Key also co-writes the screenplay.

Key, who has known Page & Palette since childhood, describes the bookstore’s place in his hometown:

“Like most writers, I’ve been to lots of bookstores all over the country. The more of them I see, the more I appreciate everything Page & Palette does for its authors and patrons. Aside from their book-loving staff and spot-on inventory, no bookstore I know of does a better job of bringing writers and readers together.
“They have been my hometown bookstore since I was a child. Now, not only are they still a great place to buy books, but a sort of clubhouse for writers and readers alike. And for a town like Fairhope, that makes it the hub of the city!”

2008

Page & Palette’s Owner Becomes SIBA President

Page & Palette Leads Southern Independent Booksellers

After four years of service on its board of directors, Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson becomes president of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, known as SIBA.

Representing independent bookstores throughout the South, Wilson worked to strengthen the position of smaller booksellers within an industry increasingly dominated by national chains and large online retailers. She was instrumental in negotiating improved terms from major publishers, including longer dating that gave independent bookstores more time to sell books before payment was due.

Wilson also helped Southern booksellers diversify their inventory and strengthen their businesses. Through SIBA workshops, she shared practical strategies for budgeting, event publicity and writing persuasive proposals to secure authors for bookstore appearances.

Her leadership reflected the lessons already being put into practice at Page & Palette. A bookstore could remain fiercely independent while expanding its inventory, creating memorable author events and becoming essential to its community.

2009

Community Service Earns Fairhope’s Quality of Life Award

Page & Palette Owner Receives Quality of Life Award

Fairhope First presents its Quality of Life Award to Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson, recognizing her work to make Fairhope a stronger, healthier and more connected community.

The annual award honored someone who “selflessly enhances the quality of life in Fairhope” and goes beyond what would ordinarily be expected of a good citizen.

Through the Page & Palette Foundation, later renamed the Good Life Foundation, Wilson transformed the bookstore’s community events into sustained support for local schools, literacy and enrichment programs. The foundation created Dancin’ in the Streets, Hook ’Em & Keep ’Em, the Good Life Ride, Jubilee Kids Triathlon, Run Forrest Run and numerous literary programs and author fundraisers.

By 2016, those efforts had contributed more than $360,000 to local schools. The 2009 award recognized not one event, but a growing body of work that used an independent bookstore to enrich the life of an entire community.

2009

Pete the Cat Becomes the Face of Runnin' in the Streets

Pete the Cat Comes Runnin’ to Fairhope

The Page & Palette Foundation prepares to launch Runnin’ in the Streets, a community 5K held in conjunction with its annual Dancin’ in the Streets fundraiser for local schools.

The story begins at the 2008 Decatur Book Festival, where foundation founder Karin Wilson notices a race poster featuring a skinny blue cat wearing running shoes. She loves the image immediately and photographs the poster.

Back in Fairhope, Wilson begins searching for an artist who can create something similar for Runnin’ in the Streets. Amy Anderson of Lyons Share recognizes the character in the photograph as Pete the Cat and identifies his creator, artist James Dean.

Wilson reaches out to Dean, tells him how she discovered his artwork and asks whether he would illustrate something similar for the foundation’s new run. Dean graciously agrees and mails her an original painting of Pete dressed for the race, wearing red running shoes and a Runnin’ in the Streets bib.

During their conversation, Dean casually mentions that Pete also appears in a self-published children’s book. Wilson asks him to send her a copy of Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, written by Eric Litwin and illustrated by Dean.

When the book arrives, Wilson reads it, hugs it and carries it around Page & Palette, telling anyone who will listen, “This is one of the best children’s books I have ever read.”

Within a remarkably short span, Page & Palette hosts James Dean for a hugely successful signing and begins selling his Pete the Cat prints and original artwork. What begins with a race poster becomes a lasting friendship between Wilson and Dean and Page & Palette’s enduring relationship with a little blue cat.

But Wilson already knew Pete was destined for something much bigger.

That story comes next.

2009

Owner Karin Gets Pete the Cat Published!

Page & Palette Takes Pete the Cat National

After recognizing Pete the Cat as an extraordinary self-published book, Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson refuses to let one publisher’s hesitation stop her and places Pete directly into the hands of HarperCollins.

Following James Dean’s enormously successful signing at Page & Palette, the self-published Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes remains in Wilson’s office. She had hugged the book after first reading it, carried it around the bookstore and told anyone who would listen, “This is one of the best children’s books I have ever read.”

She was equally certain it belonged with a major publisher.

Wilson first gives the book to her children’s sales representative from Penguin Putnam. The publisher hesitates. Certain that Pete was an obvious opportunity, Wilson repeatedly urges them to act and finally warns that if they continue dragging their feet, she will give the book to another publisher.

They continue dragging their feet.

Shortly afterward, Wilson’s HarperCollins representative arrives at Page & Palette for a scheduled appointment. She hands him Pete the Cat. His response is immediate. From Wilson’s office, he calls a HarperCollins editor to describe the book.

At the time, a charming online video showed two young girls singing “I Love My White Shoes” as the book turned from page to page. Wilson sends the editor the video while they are still discussing Pete.

The response comes almost instantly: “Tell him not to shop it!”

HarperCollins editor Laura Arnold offers to acquire the original book and a second Pete story. James Dean and writer Eric Litwin sign the two-book agreement in fall 2009, only a short time after Wilson placed the book in HarperCollins’ hands. Dean and Litwin are over the moon. Wilson is not surprised. Before the deal was signed, she had already predicted Pete would become the next major children’s bestseller.

HarperCollins publishes Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes nationally in 2010. By August 2012, the first three Pete books occupy the top three positions on The New York Times children’s bestseller list.

Today, the Pete the Cat universe includes roughly 100 published titles across numerous formats, an animated television series and licensed merchandise ranging from toys and games to clothing and classroom materials. Pete has become one of the most recognizable children’s book characters of modern times.

Page & Palette continued selling James Dean’s prints and original artwork for years. Wilson and Dean remain friends, and he still thanks her for believing in Pete, finding the right publisher and refusing to let a no-brainer become someone else’s missed opportunity.

Penguin Putnam’s hesitation became HarperCollins’ publishing phenomenon.

And what did Karin Wilson get?

The story.

2010

The Good Life Ride Puts Safer Roads in Motion

Page & Palette Foundation Starts the Good Life Ride

On August 29, 2009, Karin Wilson joins a group ride organized by Michelle Smith from Fairhope to the Flora-Bama. Karin and her twin sister, Kelley, had begun competing in triathlons and would eventually complete a full Ironman together in 2013. The Flora-Bama ride shows Karin how a long distance cycling event could combine fitness, friendship and a larger community purpose.

The following year, the Good Life Foundation turns that inspiration into the first official Good Life Ride. Cyclists depart from Page & Palette in downtown Fairhope and ride to LuLu’s in Gulf Shores.

Created as a ride rather than a race, the event welcomes cyclists of different ages and abilities. Additional starting points and distances are later added, allowing both recreational and experienced riders to participate.

The ride raises money for Smart Coast’s Share the Road and Complete Streets campaigns. Led by Wendy Allen and Charlene Lee, Smart Coast works to ensure that roads are designed and improved for everyone who uses them, including cyclists, pedestrians and motorists.

That advocacy produces lasting results. Fairhope becomes the first city in Alabama to adopt a Complete Streets ordinance, and the movement spreads throughout coastal Alabama.

In 2013, the destination moves from LuLu’s to The Hangout and the event becomes known as the Good Life Ride and Hangout. At its height, hundreds of cyclists travel from Fairhope to Gulf Shores while shorter routes begin farther south.

The Alabama Coastal Foundation later joins the Good Life Foundation in presenting the ride and eventually assumes its stewardship. The route moves to Gulf State Park, but the mission remains bicycle safety and public awareness.

In 2026, the seventeenth Good Life Ride continues the event Karin started more than fifteen years earlier.

What began as a group of friends riding to the Flora-Bama became an enduring coastal tradition and helped build a movement for roads everyone could share.

Research Note

A photograph posted August 29, 2009 documents the fifty mile ride from Michelle’s house to the Flora-Bama that inspired the event. Page & Palette’s archived foundation history dates the first official Good Life Ride to 2010. Contemporary records identify the 2012 ride to LuLu’s as the third annual event and document more than 360 participants. Smart Coast records confirm that later proceeds benefited its Complete Streets campaign. The Alabama Coastal Foundation presented the seventeenth Good Life Ride in 2026.

2011

Young Athletes Swim, Bike and Run into Fairhope History

Page & Palette Foundation Launches the Jubilee Kids Triathlon

In 2010, Page & Palette Foundation founder Karin Wilson begins creating a triathlon designed especially for children, expanding the foundation’s mission from fit minds to fit bodies.

Wilson was already a triathlete, and her daughters had competed in an IronKids event. They were so proud that they slept wearing their medals. Wilson wanted children in Fairhope to experience that same sense of accomplishment.

She partners with Mobile Baykeeper, which held its long-standing Grandman Triathlon at the Fairhope Municipal Pier. Wilson arranges to keep the Grandman equipment and course infrastructure in place for an additional day so the Page & Palette Foundation can present a children’s race on Sunday.

The first Jubilee Kids Triathlon is held in 2011 for young athletes ages 7 through 15. Its name and divisions celebrate Fairhope’s famous jubilees, when fish and shellfish appear in the shallow waters of Mobile Bay. The youngest competitors are called Shrimp, followed by Crabs, Flounders and Mullets.

The younger athletes complete a 75-yard swim, a one-mile bicycle ride and a three-quarter-mile run. Older competitors face a 200-yard swim, a three-mile bicycle ride and a 1.75-mile run.

The arrangement creates a complete weekend of family competition. Adults race in the Grandman on Saturday, then return on Sunday to cheer as children swim, bike and run along the bay.

In 2012, Wilson invites nationally recognized young triathletes Conner and Cayden Long to participate. Conner competes alongside Cayden, who has cerebral palsy, pulling him in a raft during the swim, towing him during the bicycle portion and pushing him during the run. Later that year, Sports Illustrated Kids names the brothers its 2012 SportsKids of the Year.

A beautifully produced film, Jubilee Kids Triathlon Trailer, captures the excitement of the race and the unmistakable pride on the faces of children crossing the finish line.

The Eastern Shore Triathlon Club later helps continue the race. In 2017, Mobile Baykeeper assumes a larger role in producing it alongside the Grandman, and the event eventually becomes known as the Grandman Kids Triathlon.

The race continues for more than a decade, introducing hundreds of children to swimming, cycling and running. It is interrupted during the pandemic.

The Page & Palette Foundation did not merely encourage children to read about adventures. It gave them one of their own.

2011

Garden & Gun Honors Page & Palette’s Community Impact.

Page & Palette Earns Garden & Gun Local Hero Recognition

Garden & Gun recognizes Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson as a “Local Hero” in its 2011 feature, “Why Life Is So Good on Mobile Bay.”

The article observes that running a successful independent bookstore amid ruthless big-box and online competition might seem enough to absorb every ounce of Wilson’s energy. Its answer is simple: “Hardly.”

After purchasing Page & Palette from her grandmother, Betty Joe Wolff, in 1997, Wilson expanded the bookstore’s role as a cultural gathering place while creating programs that supported local schools, literacy, the arts and community life.

The accompanying photograph shows Wilson inside Page & Palette holding a portrait of Betty Joe Wolff, the woman who taught her that owning a community business also meant accepting a responsibility to serve the community around it.

Wolff was more than Wilson’s grandmother and predecessor at Page & Palette. She was the very best role model for what a community leader should be.

Wilson carried that example forward through the Page & Palette Foundation, creating Dancin’ in the Streets, Hook ’Em & Keep ’Em, Run Forrest Run, the Good Life Ride, the Jubilee Kids Triathlon and numerous literary events and fundraisers

Garden & Gun’s recognition honors a family legacy passed from grandmother to granddaughter, then from mother to daughters. Karin has now passed that same commitment to Page & Palette and its community to Tyler and Tanner Wilson, continuing a legacy built by their great-grandmother, Betty Joe Wolff.

2012

Booksellers Give Readers a Preview Upcoming Releases

Page & Palette Launches Book Talk

Page & Palette launches its Book Club Event, a quarterly gathering created to introduce readers and book clubs to noteworthy upcoming releases. It started out for many years with our incredible handsellers Anderson McKean and Stephanie Crowe.

Unlike a traditional book club devoted to discussing one title, Page & Palette staff present a carefully selected collection of forthcoming books, sharing the stories behind them and explaining why each deserves readers’ attention.

It is the literary equivalent of watching movie previews, except the recommendations come from booksellers who have read the advance copies and know their audience.

The Book Club Event eventually evolves into Book Talk and becomes one of Page & Palette’s most popular continuing literary programs. Held four times a year, it draws an enthusiastic audience eager to discover new authors, plan future reading and hear directly from the people who spend their days matching books with readers.

Book Talk reflects one of Page & Palette’s most important roles: not simply selling books, but helping readers discover what they should read next. Now hosted by various members of the book department staff and livestreamed for a broader audience, the event has included Anderson from its very beginning.

2013

Page & Palette Publishes The Spirit of Fairhope

Page & Palette publishes The Spirit of Fairhope, a richly illustrated collection of the history, people and places that have inspired generations of artists, writers, dreamers and independent thinkers to call Fairhope home.

The book is written by father and daughter Dean Mosher and Megrez R. Mosher. Dean moved to Fairhope in 1974 and became known for his historical paintings, now held by museums, military academies and National Park Service visitor centers. Megrez, a native Fairhopian and creative writing graduate, grew up immersed in the town’s artistic culture and studied dance at Creative Outlet Dance Center.

Fannie Flagg, Winston Groom, Rick Bragg, Frank Turner Hollon, Sonny Brewer and Andy Andrews contribute their own impressions of Fairhope. Karin Wilson writes the foreword.

The cover features the work of celebrated Fairhope artist Jo Patton. As the book’s flap explains, “There never was a second thought given to who would do our cover.” Dean, Megrez and Jo were all longtime friends of the Wolff and Wilson family, making the publication as personal as the community it celebrates.

The Spirit of Fairhope is now out of print, but Page & Palette plans to update and republish it so a new generation can discover the people and stories behind Fairhope’s unmistakable spirit.

2013

The Advice Booth Begins Solving the World’s Problems, Five Cents at a Time

Sonya Bennett and Nancye Jennings were close family friends, devoted supporters of Page & Palette and two women whose wisdom Karin deeply valued. Nancye’s connection went back even further. She had worked for Betty Joe “Granny” Wolff at Page & Palette when Karin was a child.

Both women were members of the Bahá’í Faith, whose principles Karin admired. She considered Sonya and Nancye mentors, confidantes and trusted sources of perspective.

During a difficult period for independent bookstores, Sonya and Nancye met with Karin in Latte Da to discuss ways Page & Palette could become more sustainable. They offered idea after idea, determined to help a bookstore they loved.

The group looked so serious that a passing customer stopped to ask what they were doing.

They were solving the world’s problems.

Afterward, Karin told Sonya and Nancye how much she valued their advice and how fortunate the public would be to have access to what she had been blessed with for years. That led to a joking conversation about Lucy’s five cent advice booth in the Peanuts comic strip.

The joke quickly became an idea.

Karin had a wooden booth built, Lisette Norman’s daughter, painted its familiar sign. Lisette, a longtime friend, had opened The Fairhope Store inside Page & Palette before moving the business into a home of its own. The coincidence was too perfect to miss. The young artist who painted Page & Palette’s Peanuts inspired advice booth was named Lucy.

Sonya and Nancye began holding court inside Latte Da, offering advice for a nickel. First time visitors often received a “scholarship,” while others paid more so the next person’s advice could be covered.

Visitors came with questions both light and life changing. Some wanted help choosing a paint color. Others came with troubled relationships, family estrangements or decisions that had weighed on them for years.

Sonya and Nancye brought humor to the booth, but they also brought compassion, discretion and a genuine gift for listening. Visitors often selected a virtue card that helped begin the conversation, with words such as forgiveness, moderation, accountability or courtesy offering an unexpected path toward what they needed to discuss.

Their rules were simple. They did not advise on gambling or politics, and they never treated anyone’s troubles lightly. They listened carefully, offered perspective and reminded people that wisdom often begins with hearing one another.

The booth became a longstanding fixture inside Page & Palette and another expression of what an independent bookstore can be. It did not sell books or coffee. It created connection.

Sonya and Nancye began by trying to help save a bookstore. In the process, they created a place where countless people felt heard, encouraged and a little less alone.

As Karin later observed, they really did help solve the world’s problems, one person and one nickel at a time.

Picture posted credit: Michelle Matthews

2014

Fairhope Local Champions Independent Businesses

Page & Palette Founds Fairhope Local

Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson founds Fairhope Local, an educational and promotional campaign created to preserve Fairhope’s distinctive character by encouraging residents to support locally owned businesses.

The initiative grows from the Fairhope Shop Local campaign Wilson began in 2005 with the message “Invest in the Nest.” It explains that shopping locally does far more than support an individual merchant. Independent businesses employ local residents, contribute to schools and nonprofit organizations, keep more money circulating within the community and preserve the qualities that make Fairhope unlike anywhere else.

In 2014, Wilson brings Fairhope’s independent retailers, restaurants, artists, professionals and entrepreneurs together for a major gathering at The Venue. Fairhope Local gives these businesses a shared identity while helping residents understand that every purchasing decision helps shape the town they call home.

Run Forrest Run also becomes part of the launch. The community race combines local business promotion with the spirited public events for which Wilson and the Good Life Foundation had become known. It returns in 2015 as Fairhope Local’s second annual Run Forrest Run.

What begins as one bookseller’s campaign becomes a continuing civic message: Fairhope’s quality of life depends on the people willing to invest, create jobs and build businesses here.

2014

Page & Palette Returns Forrest Gump to Hardcover

Page & Palette Publishes 20th Anniversary Forrest Gump

In September 2014, Page & Palette creates a commemorative hardcover edition of Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump, returning the beloved novel to hardcover after nearly twenty years out of print for the twentieth anniversary of the film.

The project grows from Page & Palette’s longstanding relationship with Groom, a Fairhope author and close family friend. Groom had been particularly close to Betty Joe Wolff, the bookstore’s longtime owner. That friendship continued with her granddaughter, Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson.

Wilson conceives and leads the project with Groom to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Academy Award winning film. The new hardcover includes an introduction by Groom and is issued with an illustrated dust jacket. Page & Palette also creates a deluxe collector’s edition limited to 500 numbered copies, each signed by Winston Groom, bound in navy cloth with silver lettering and presented in a matching slipcase.

On September 26, Page & Palette hosts An Evening with Winston Groom, featuring Groom in conversation with his longtime friend Jimbo Meador.

The evening is unusually personal, funny and memorable. Rather than a conventional author presentation, the two old friends trade stories about their lives, their friendship and the real experiences behind Forrest Gump.

The novel would not have been written without Fairhope local Jimbo Meador. Groom dedicated Forrest Gump to him and drew important elements of Forrest’s character from Meador’s life as a fisherman, shrimper, runner, outdoorsman and natural storyteller. Tom Hanks later studied recordings of Meador’s distinctive voice while preparing to play Forrest.

Groom and Meador sign books together that evening, creating especially scarce copies bearing both signatures.

The commemorative edition and anniversary celebration bring an Alabama classic back into hardcover while honoring the Fairhope friendship that helped bring Forrest Gump to life.

The regular commemorative hardcover with dust jacket is now out of print. Page & Palette retains a small number of the signed, numbered slipcased editions, available for $350 while supplies last. Regular signed hardcovers now sell for approximately $200 through online booksellers.

2014

Robbie Wolff’s Baldwin County Portrait Finds its Permanent Home

Robbie Wolff's Vision Finds a Permanent Home

In 2014, Robbie Wolff’s extraordinary vision for Baldwin County Portrait comes full circle.

The project Robbie commissioned in the late 1980s produced approximately 400 oil paintings, 400 watercolors and 700 pencil drawings by Stig Marcussen. The works capture regional landscapes, local landmarks, coastal life and ordinary Baldwin County scenes that development has since altered or erased.

Over time, what began as one man’s ambitious idea came to be recognized as an important visual history of a rapidly changing community.

Dr. Lynn and Corey Yonge, Sam and DruAnne Townsley and Mac and Gina Walcott acquire the remaining collection and donate it to Thomas Hospital, ensuring that the work stays together and can be enjoyed by the community that inspired it.

Robbie’s daughter Kelley Lyons and her husband, Mike Lyons, owners of Lyons Share Custom Framing and Gallery, help hang the collection throughout the hospital’s halls and offices.

The installation carries Robbie’s vision into another generation. The artwork he imagined, encouraged and made possible is no longer confined to a gallery or private collection. It surrounds patients, families, physicians and hospital employees every day.

The collection remains on permanent public display at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope, now part of the Infirmary Health system.

What began with Robbie recognizing the potential in a young artist became a permanent gift to Baldwin County and a lasting testament to his vision.

2015

Fairhope Author and Historian John S. Sledge Publishes The Mobile River

John Sledge Publishes The Mobile River

Fairhope author and historian John S. Sledge publishes The Mobile River, the first narrative history devoted to the waterway that gave Mobile its name.

Combining historical research, personal experience and more than sixty images, Sledge traces the river from the meeting of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers through its delta, harbor and entrance into Mobile Bay. He brings its history to life through the Indigenous people, European settlers, enslaved people, soldiers, steamboat captains, stevedores and river communities shaped by its waters.

In 2024, Sledge carries that history across the Gulf with Mobile and Havana: Sisters Across the Gulf, created with Cuban historian Alicia García-Santana and photographers Chip Cooper and Julio Ángel Larramendi. The book explores centuries of shared history between the two port cities.

Page & Palette hosts the English-language launch in Fairhope. Later that year, fourth-generation Page & Palette bookseller Tyler Wilson travels to Cuba with the Mobile-Havana Society for the Spanish-language presentation at Havana’s historic Palace of the Captains General.

Bilingual in English and Spanish, Tyler considers participating in the Havana event a rare personal and professional treat. The gathering brings together American and Cuban authors, photographers and readers, revealing how much the people of the two Gulf cities share.

Sledge’s affection for his hometown bookstore is equally clear:

“We are incomparably blessed here in charming Fairhope to have Page & Palette, now forty years young. What better way to celebrate than to darken its door, again and again, money in hand!”

John Sledge

Research Note

The University of South Carolina Press records April 29, 2015, as the publication date of The Mobile River. Mobile and Havana: Sisters Across the Gulf was published in September 2024. Mobile Bay Magazine documents Page & Palette’s Fairhope launch and fourth-generation bookseller Tyler Wilson’s participation in the later Havana presentation.

2015

Books, Music and Community Find a Home

Page & Palette Opens the Book Cellar

After a major renovation, Page & Palette holds a soft opening for the Book Cellar, an intimate event space capable of seating approximately 150 people.

Like Latte Da before it, the Book Cellar receives its name through a customer contest, allowing the community to help shape the newest chapter of the bookstore.

The space is created primarily to provide a permanent home for Page & Palette’s demanding calendar of author events. For years, larger programs had to be held outside the store, making them expensive, time consuming and labor intensive. The Book Cellar allows Page & Palette to host authors under its own roof while its bar helps offset the cost of producing the events.

Fairhope musician Grayson Capps suggests adding live music on Monday nights, when most musicians are not performing elsewhere. He becomes the first musician in what grows into a lasting Monday night tradition and one of the Book Cellar’s most popular evenings.

Although it has a bar, the Book Cellar never feels like one. It becomes a neighborhood gathering place, often compared to Cheers, where regulars are greeted by name. Karin Wilson’s sister, Kelley Lyons, even names her dog Norm. Whenever he enters the room, everyone calls “Norm!” in unison, just as they did on the television show.

The Book Cellar grows into a successful venue for author conversations and live performances by musicians from across the country. Although the number of touring author events changes dramatically after the pandemic, the purpose of the room remains the same: bringing people together through stories, music and community.

2015

Winston Groom’s Plaque Begins a Literary Walk

Winston Groom's Plaque is Installed on Sidewalk

In November 2015, a permanent plaque honoring Winston Groom and Forrest Gump is installed in the sidewalk outside Page & Palette.

The open book design features the title of Groom’s most famous novel, his name and signature, creating a permanent tribute to an author whose life and work were deeply connected to the bookstore and the Fairhope community.

Groom had been part of the Page & Palette story for decades. The bookstore hosted his events, celebrated his books and published a special twentieth anniversary edition of Forrest Gump in 2014.

The plaque carried that relationship beyond the walls of the bookstore and into the streets of downtown Fairhope. Visitors could quite literally walk across a piece of the town’s literary history.

Years later, the lone plaque would inspire something much larger. In celebration of Page & Palette’s sixtieth anniversary, the Fairhope Literary Walk expands around the bookstore, honoring the authors, books and ideas that helped shape Fairhope’s literary identity.

2015

Page & Palette Publishes Goodnight Fairhope

Page & Palette turns its idea for a children’s book celebrating Fairhope into Goodnight Fairhope, written by Heather M. Hickox and illustrated by Melissa Smith.

The rhyming bedtime story follows the town’s familiar places and traditions, while inviting readers to find Earl the Squirrel hidden throughout its pages. Created as a keepsake for residents and visitors, the book becomes another chapter in Page & Palette’s history as a publisher of stories rooted in Fairhope.

2016

A Bookseller Becomes Fairhope’s First Female Mayor

Page & Palette Owner Is Elected Mayor of Fairhope

Page & Palette president Karin Wilson defeats a four-term incumbent and is elected Fairhope’s first female mayor on August 23, 2016.

Her decision to run grows directly from her experience as a local business owner. Page & Palette’s livelihood had always depended on the health and character of Fairhope. Wilson believed rapid growth was beginning to threaten the identity and quality of life that made the city extraordinary.

Wilson’s candidacy attracts national attention within the book industry. In an article titled “Another Bookseller Runs for Mayor,” Shelf Awareness explains that a victory would place her among the “distinguished ranks of bookseller-mayors.”

The article names Richard Howorth of Square Books in Oxford, Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz, Eric Papenfuse of Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, Tom Lowry of Lowry’s Books in Michigan and David Gronbach of Bank Street Book Nook in Connecticut.

When Wilson wins, she joins this remarkable tradition of independent booksellers moving from the counter to City Hall. That circle has continued to grow, demonstrating what bookstore communities have always understood: independent booksellers do not merely observe the life of a town. They often help lead it.

Wilson takes office in November and spends four years strengthening Fairhope’s planning, development review and long-range decision making. Her administration creates a collaborative review process involving planning, public works, utilities, building inspection and other departments.

Developers receive written comments before public review. New requirements provide for earlier staff coordination, public community meetings, stronger green space standards and greater consideration of the effects new development will have on roads, drainage and utilities.

Wilson’s administration also pursues outside funding on a scale previously unavailable to the City. By 2019, Fairhope reports more than $21 million in grants requested and secured during the previous two years.

Nearly $18 million comes through the RESTORE Act for four projects with a lasting impact on Fairhope:

$10 million to upgrade Fairhope’s sewer system, reduce sanitary sewer overflows and protect the water quality of Mobile Bay.

$6.2 million for working waterfront and green space restoration, including shoreline stabilization, drainage improvements, stormwater management and improvements around the Municipal Pier.

$1 million for an Eastern Shore sanitary sewer overflow prevention project designed to develop innovative solutions that could be replicated by other communities.

$650,000 for the Fairhope Area Community-Based Comprehensive Land Use Plan, combining Fairhope’s first land use plan, a full comprehensive plan and recommendations for the Greeno Road corridor.

Wilson proposes that the land use project study the entire Fairhope community, including areas outside the city limits. Although municipal tax dollars could not ordinarily be spent planning for unincorporated areas, development there still affected Fairhope’s roads, watersheds, utilities and quality of life. Outside funding makes it possible to plan around the real community rather than an artificial line on a map.

Wilson’s move from bookseller to mayor is not a departure from Page & Palette’s story. It is an extension of it. The bookstore had always depended on Fairhope, and when Wilson believed Fairhope’s future was at risk, she stepped outside the store to help protect it.

2018

Page & Palette Remembers Betty Joe “Granny” Wolff

Betty Joe Wolff, known to nearly everyone as Granny, is “promoted to heaven” after “91 glorious years on God’s green earth without ever having a bad hair day.”

Betty Joe Wolff, known to nearly everyone as Granny, dies on February 22, 2018. Her family’s obituary captures not only what she accomplished, but the unforgettable woman behind it.

After “putting her face on” every morning, Granny was a body in motion that stayed in motion. She loved corned beef hash, banana pudding, seafood gumbo, Werther’s Original candies and butter pecan ice cream. Frugal to a fault, she could make a box of zip lock bags last three and a half years.

She took pride in never having darkened the door of a Walmart and had little use for the letter “R,” speed bumps or a long homily. When she was truly angry, she declared, “God bless America and all the ships at sea!” Her habit of clicking, popping and smacking her spearmint gum became known within the family as the original beatbox.

Her passion was books. After purchasing Page & Palette in the early 1970s, she transformed a small bookstore and art supply shop into a haven for readers, writers and the growing literary community of Fairhope.

For decades, Granny brought authors from across the country to Fairhope and welcomed writers before the rest of the world knew their names. Fannie Flagg held the first signing for her first novel at Page & Palette, one of countless relationships that grew from books into enduring friendships. Many credit Granny’s work with helping establish the rich writing culture for which Fairhope later became nationally recognized.

Her influence reached far beyond the bookstore. In 1960, she helped organize Thomas Hospital’s original Pink Ladies, now the Auxiliary. She was a charter member and organizer of the Downtown Fairhope Business Association, the first president of Theatre 98 and one of the earliest members of Knights and Knighties. At 90 years old and, according to her family, 90 miles per hour, she still traveled the back roads of Baldwin County to volunteer at the Swift-Coles Historic Home.

A member of St. James Episcopal Church for more than fifty years, Granny served in nearly every capacity except rector and remained one word ahead of the congregation during psalms and hymns. Her family tried to find someone who had ever heard her say an unkind word about another person. They failed.

Granny rarely remembered anyone’s name, since proper nouns were never a Wolff family strength, but she knew everyone. She knew where they worked, who their family was and how their lives connected. Directions to the right person might require a bank, the old post office, a cast net maker and someone in Point Clear before a customer in the nonfiction aisle finally supplied the missing name.

The Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts named Wolff Cottage, its home for visiting writers, in honor of the woman Sonny Brewer called “an author’s best friend and advocate.”

Granny stood at the center of every major event in the Wolff family. She also stood at the heart of Page & Palette, shaping the humor, faith, generosity and sense of community that continue through her granddaughter Karin Wilson and the generations following her.

Her legacy is not simply a bookstore that survived. It is a bookstore that taught a community to gather around books and one another.

As her family wrote, there were three certainties in life: death, taxes and Granny’s faith. To keep a little of Granny’s magic here on earth, all anyone needs to do is keep the faith.

Betty Joe “Granny” Wolff, the heart of Page & Palette and an author’s best friend and advocate.

2023

The Fourth Generation Steps Forward

In 2023, Tyler Wilson formally becomes manager of Page & Palette, and her sister, Tanner Wilson, steps into a larger role beside her. Together, they mark the beginning of the bookstore’s fourth generation of leadership.

Their story at Page & Palette began much earlier. Like their mother, Karin, and her twin sister, Kelley, before them, Tyler and Tanner started helping around the family bookstore when they were about ten years old. What began with the small jobs given to children in a family business gradually became real responsibility and a deep understanding of how the bookstore works.

Tyler now leads the store’s daily operations while helping shape what Page & Palette will become next. Tanner continues contributing to the family business and stepped forward when Tyler assumed the manager’s role.

They bring their own energy, ideas and perspective to the business.

2025

Movement Returns Upstairs at Page & Palette

Plot Twist Yoga Opens at Page & Palette

Plot Twist Yoga Studio opens upstairs at Page & Palette in January 2025, adding movement, mindfulness and physical wellbeing to the bookstore’s continuing story.

The idea begins when Karin Wilson approaches yoga instructor Angel Curtin about transforming an upstairs apartment into a studio. After one two-hour conversation, they are ready to make it happen. Curtin joins Catherine Teal to create the program, and interest grows so quickly that additional instructors soon come aboard.

As it had done when naming Latte Da and the Book Cellar, Page & Palette asks its customers to name the new studio. The winning choice, Plot Twist, perfectly captures both its literary home and an unexpected new chapter for the family business.

Under Curtin and Teal’s leadership, Plot Twist evolves to offer many forms of yoga and other special classes seven days a week for different ages, abilities and levels of experience. The studio also welcomes private gatherings, including bridesmaids parties and other group events.

Plot Twist reconnects Page & Palette with one of its earliest creative traditions. In the late 1970s, Gina Lanaux opened Creative Outlet above the bookstore, offering dance, piano, calligraphy, guitar, tai chi and drama. Karin and Kelley Wolff were among Lanaux’s first dance students, and Karin continued dancing with the studio through high school.

Years later, the Page & Palette Foundation carried the same philosophy into its community programs through “Fit Minds, Fit Bodies,” connecting literacy, education and physical wellbeing.

Plot Twist continues that tradition while encouraging people to slow down, recognize their worth and make their own wellbeing a priority. Its “You First” philosophy embraces care over burnout, boundaries over pleasing everyone and growth over guilt.

Plot Twist is not a departure from the bookstore’s mission. It is a return to its roots. Creative Outlet once filled the upstairs with movement and imagination. The foundation later promoted fit minds and fit bodies. Plot Twist brings those ideas together again under the Page & Palette roof.

The best stories begin when the main character takes control. At Plot Twist, that main character is you.

2026

Fairhope Remembers Artist, Visionary and Connector Robbie Wolff

Remembering Robbie Wolff

Robert W. “Robbie” Wolff Jr. was part of the fabric of Fairhope in a way that cannot be replaced.

Raised in Fairhope, he attended the Organic School through eighth grade before graduating from Fairhope High School, a distinction many still consider the mark of a true Fairhoper. After college, he returned to teach art at the Organic School, giving back to the place that helped shape him.

In the 1970s, Robbie joined his mother, Betty Joe Wolff, at Page & Palette. His framing and gallery work later became a separate business, but it remained part of the same family story and eventually occupied the building where Page & Palette stands today.

Robbie helped build Fairhope’s art scene into what it became. He was not watching it happen. He was making it happen.

He had an instinct for recognizing talent early and, more importantly, knew how to develop it. He brought the right people together, pushed them, believed in them and had a way of working with artists that brought out their absolute best.

If you were an artist in the region, chances are Robbie Wolff was in your corner at some point. He believed in artists before others did, opened doors, made introductions and created momentum where none had existed.

That vision can be seen clearly in Baldwin County Portrait, the extraordinary collection Robbie commissioned Stig Marcussen to create during the late 1980s. Robbie recognized Stig’s potential, gave him the freedom and support to pursue an ambitious idea and helped create a visual record of Baldwin County that continues to endure.

Before Robbie’s death, Stig visited him in the hospital and told him how much Robbie had meant to him personally and how important Robbie’s belief in his talent shaped his career.

Robbie and Betty Joe also helped establish what became the Downtown Fairhope Business Association. His vision extended beyond individual artists and projects to the future of the community itself.

Robbie owned and operated art galleries from Mobile to Pensacola. In 1995, he founded Ashland Gallery in Mobile with his wife, Cathy Collins. Decades later, the gallery is still thriving, carrying forward the creative vision and commitment to artists upon which it was built.

Later in life, Robbie moved to Bakersville, North Carolina, near the Penland School of Craft, continuing to surround himself with creativity, talent and community.

He loved animals of nearly every description, including cats, birds, snakes, geckos, chickens and roosters. When he finally got a dog, he loved her so much he could not believe he had waited so long. Truth be told, he may have felt more for his animal friends than he did for most people.

More than anything, Robbie was a connector. He understood that community is built through relationships and invested in those relationships in ways that changed lives.

His influence remains visible in the artists he encouraged, the businesses and collaborations he created, the family enterprise he helped shape and the Fairhope arts community he helped bring to life.

There are many people whose paths are different because Robbie Wolff believed in them. He will be deeply missed by the community he helped shape, support and grow.

2026

60 Years at the Heart of Fairhope

Page & Palette Celebrates 60 Years

What began with a grand opening on April 8 and 9, 1966, grew into far more than a bookstore. Across six decades, Page & Palette became a gathering place where readers discovered books, writers found audiences and generations of families returned to share stories of their own.

The bookstore’s history has followed the changing life of Fairhope while remaining rooted in the belief that bookstores matter because community matters. Page & Palette welcomed celebrated authors and first-time writers, supported schools and local causes, created community traditions and helped books find their way from unknown beginnings to national audiences.

Its story also expanded beyond books. Latte Da brought coffee and conversation into the store. The Book Cellar created a new home for author events, music and evening gatherings. Plot Twist Yoga returned movement and creative instruction to the upstairs space where Creative Outlet once began.

Most importantly, Page & Palette enters its 60th year as a four-generation family bookstore. Betty Joe Wolff established the family’s place in its history. Robbie Wolff and Robbie Wolff Jr. helped shape the store that followed. Karin and Kiefer Wilson carried it into a new generation, and Tyler and Tanner Wilson are now beginning the next chapter.

Throughout its anniversary year, Page & Palette is honoring its past while investing in what comes next. The bookstore is developing the Fairhope Literary Walk around the store, introducing new technology and operational systems and launching a national initiative to explore practical ways independent bookstores can evolve without losing the relationships, discovery and community that make them matter.

To the best of the historical evidence currently available, Page & Palette shares the national ranking as the third-oldest continuously family-owned and operated independent general bookstore selling new books. Its qualifying family ownership began when Betty Joe Wolff purchased the bookstore in August 1973. The designation, criteria and continuing research are explained in greater detail through the link below.

After 60 years, there is still a story here. And the next chapter is already being written.

2026

Page & Palette Publishes Murray Lawrence Jr.’s story

Page & Palette Publishes Life Without Parole

Page & Palette publishes Life Without Jurisdiction: The Murray Lawrence Jr. Story, bringing public attention to a case that has remained largely unknown for more than twenty years.

Murray Lawrence Jr. was convicted without DNA, a weapon or physical evidence connecting him to the crime. No witness placed him at the scene except the admitted killer, who first implicated Murray nearly four months after his own arrest while negotiating a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty.

Drawing from court transcripts, public records and forensic evidence, the book examines the failures surrounding Murray’s conviction, including the State’s failure to establish that the crime occurred within Alabama’s territorial jurisdiction.

The book is published anonymously to keep its focus on the evidence and avoid political influence while Murray continues seeking relief through the courts. The complete case record, supporting documents and continuing developments are available at on his website

All proceeds from the book support the effort to obtain legal representation and pursue justice for Murray.

2026

Literary and Author Events Reach Beyond Fairhope

Page & Palette Begins Livestreaming Literary and Author Events

In August 2026, Page & Palette begins livestreaming its author events, allowing readers to participate even when they cannot be in the room.

The effort becomes possible through Adrianne Gray, a Fairhope resident, friend and devoted supporter of the bookstore. Wanting to help Page & Palette share its events with a wider audience, Gray takes on the considerable work of helping design, organize and implement the livestreaming program.

What viewers see as a seamless broadcast requires substantial preparation behind the scenes, from equipment and technical setup to testing, coordination and real-time production. Gray’s generosity turns an ambitious idea into a working part of Page & Palette’s event program.

The technology is new, but the purpose remains familiar: bringing authors and readers together. Sixty years after Page & Palette first opened its doors, its literary conversations can now travel far beyond them.

2026

Fannie Flagg Comes Home for Page & Palette’s 60th Anniversary

Page & Palette Publishes Commemorative Edition Coming Attractions

In 1981, Betty Joe Wolff welcomed a young first-time novelist named Fannie Flagg to Page & Palette for the first book signing of her first novel, Coming Attractions.

Betty Joe drove to the airport with her granddaughters, seventh-grade twins Karin and Kelley Wolff, to pick up the already familiar performer as she began an entirely new chapter as a novelist. Karin read Coming Attractions as her first grownup book and immediately recognized herself and Kelley in its funny, mischievous young heroine, Daisy Fay Harper.

The novel was later published as Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man. Fannie went on to become one of America’s most beloved storytellers, returning to Page & Palette with each new book to begin her national tours. Her friendship with Betty Joe grew especially close. After Karin purchased the bookstore from her grandmother in 1997, her own relationship with Fannie deepened into family. Karin called Fannie her other mother, and Fannie called Karin her daughter.

In 2026, Fannie comes home once again as Page & Palette celebrates its 60th anniversary. The bookstore publishes a signed limited commemorative edition of Coming Attractions, returning to the novel and the friendship that began forty-five years earlier.

The edition includes Coming Home, a personal reflection by Karin Wilson recounting the first signing, the friendship between Fannie and the Wolff and Wilson families and the remarkable journey that brought them back together for this anniversary.

The celebration coincides with the publication of Fannie’s newest book, Something to Look Forward To. Together, the two books honor where her career began and the extraordinary storyteller she became.

This commemorative edition brings the story full circle. It celebrates Fannie, four generations of the Page & Palette family and the readers who helped turn a first book signing into a lifelong friendship.

Most of all, it is the story of Fannie coming home. Books will be available on our website for purchase while supplies last.