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Fairhope Like the rest of Alabama’s Eastern Shore, Fairhope’s tourist attractions are low-key and must be sought out. Most visitors come to shop, eat, walk the waterfront and play golf, according to tourism officials. Yet Fairhope is centrally located in an area that invites exploration. To the north are residential Montrose, bustling Daphne and Historic Blakeley State Park and Spanish Fort (the sites of the last two Civil War battles). To the south are Point Clear, atmospheric Magnolia Springs, wildlife refuges, Fort Morgan and the Gulf of Mexico beaches. Fairhope Single Tax Colony. Central to enjoying Fairhope is an understanding of its beginnings as a utopian community more than a century ago. Eighteen adults and nine children arrived by bay boat in 1894 to settle a colony founded on reformer Henry George’s principal of "cooperative individualism." They first purchased 150 acres, including a half mile along the bayfront, and later bought 200 acres of farmland in what is now the downtown area. Today, the corporation owns more than 4,000 acres, about sixteen percent of the municipality, including residential and business lots. It leases land for 99 years and the lessees pay rent to the corporation, which pays city and state taxes and funds community improvements. The rent is the only tax paid. The concept is interesting and may be explored in the library of the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation, with offices and a council room in prime downtown quarters at 336-340 Fairhope Ave., 928-8162, (open Monday-Friday 9 to 5). The concept is also controversial – some today tout it as the ideal mix between the extremes of capitalism and communism; others call it creeping socialism. Some lots are leased and others are deeded (owned), and the colony works closely with the municipal government. You need a local guide to point out salient features of the colony. It basically consists of the downtown and two residential sections, laid out in lots of 66 by 66 feet or multiples thereof, close to the common bayfront park and pier. Modest bungalows, including two early Sears, Roebuck mail-order homes, prevail in what is dubbed the "Fruit and Nut Section" for its streets named Orange, Kumquat, Pecan and the like. Others flank streets named Prospect, Freedom, Liberty, Equity and Equality. More substantial houses, many on larger lots, are found along Magnolia and Bayview avenues. All are said to be in great demand. The founder’s family still lives here, and the colony is an influential part of the broader community today. Another vestige of the early colony is the Marietta Johnson Organic School, which flourished for years on the site of what now is the Fairhope campus of Faulkner State Community College. The old school, admired by John Dewey, did not adhere to traditional grade levels but rather the organic theory in which children developed like blooming rose petals, as one local historian described it. The Fairhope Pier and Bayfront Parks. One of the colonists’ earliest endeavors was to build a municipal pier in 1895 for the bay boats that connected the Eastern Shore with Mobile and brought visitors to the early hotels. Now a cement pier, it extends a quarter mile into the bay and contains the Yardarm Restaurant and a boat marina. It’s a community gathering point or, as the sign says, a place "for walkers, talkers and fishermen." A fountain and gardens at the foot of Fairhope Avenue identifies the start of the pier. The colony donated the beach and land on either side for municipal parks, giving Fairhope an unusual amount of public access to the bayfront. Fairhope and adjoining beaches from Point Clear to Daphne are known for an unusual Jubilee Phenomenon. It occurs in summertime when complex early morning conditions force shellfish, flounder and other bottom-dwellers to swarm for oxygen on the beach surfaces. It’s a jubilee for fishermen and spectators, but ends at sunrise. Montrose adjoins Fairhope to the north along Scenic Route 98. It mixes palatial bayfront homes with antebellum landmarks beneath live oak trees draped in spanish moss. Now a national historic district, its board owns the community post office. An historic plaque describes Ecor Rouge, the highest coastal point between Maine and Mexico (120 feet above sea level). The red cliff, a mariner’s landmark on Spanish maps of the 1500s, was named by French settlers in the 1700s. Point Clear, adjoining Fairhope to the south, takes its name from the promontory that shelters much of the rest of the Eastern Shore from high winds and waves. The Grand is the last of the pre-Civil War hotels, and a Confederate Memorial Cemetery is part of its grounds. The Point Clear Historic District south of the hotel includes 28 notable homes built between 1850 and 1930. Cottages extend east along the shore to the Brodbeck-Zundel Historic District. Punta Clara Kitchen, Scenic Highway 98, Point Clear. The 1897 landmark known as Miss Colleen’s House, a National Register site, is the home of Punta Clara (Point Clear) Kitchen. It’s owned by Miss Colleen’s niece, Dorothy Brodbeck Pacey, and her family. Three generations of Paceys help staff the kitchen, which started in 1952 as a backyard hobby. Family recipes are used to produce the fudge, pralines, covered pecans, preserves and jellies that are sold here, in a downtown Fairhope shop and through a mail-order catalog. This is a favorite stop for visitors, as much for the house interior as for the kitchen. It’s a veritable museum, furnished as it was at the turn of the century. You get to peer into the clutter of the parlor, the bedroom once shared by four girls and the master bedroom. Typewritten signs itemize the furnishings you’re looking at. (334) 928-8477 or (800) 437-7868. Open Monday-Saturday 9 to 5, Sunday 12:30 to 5. Free. Shopping. More than 75 shops are located across several downtown blocks and courtyards centered around Fairhope Avenue and Section Street. Baskets of hanging flowers cascade from lamp poles and sidewalk flower boxes, changing with the seasons. Some of the sidewalks are flanked by memorial bricks, which people purchase for $65 to have their say for posterity. They make for interesting reading. We found a brick engraved with "Only a fool says there is no God ‘96" next to one by "Two Musketeers, the Fearsome Fivesome and an Angel, 11/22/95." The sayings keep people amused while their spouses shop. Women shoppers often park their spouses in the rocking chairs outside Fairhope Hardware store. Fairhope has no souvenir shops, as such. The Fairhope Pharmacy is the only place to get a local postcard, and offers only three selections at that. Nor is there a franchise store or restaurant in town, unless the new Orvis section at Middle Bay Outfitters qualifies. Owner Jack West attracts attention as he gives fly-fishing lessons on the corner of Fairhope Avenue and North Church Street. Beyond East Bay Clothiers for Men is Old Bay Mercantile, a potpourri of antiques, furniture, fine jewelry and collectibles. Nearby is Bountiful Home, a home furnishings shop in a house that opened in 1986 as Fairhope’s first B&B. Art and craft galleries abound. Artists feature their own works at Watercolors by Willoweise (Langham) and the new Jim Gray Gallery, where we picked up a bird painting by daughter-manager Laurie Gray Schmohl. Potter Cathy Ginder has a studio at her home, and Tom Jones has a pottery east of town. We liked the hand-painted canoe paddles and Adirondack chairs outside The Studio Over the Bay and were enticed inside by all the whimsical, impressionist work by mostly Alabama artists. Iron Age Gallery specializes in an amazing variety of blacksmith and iron works. Special interests are satisfied by In the Company of Angels. Lynn Boothe offers room after room of collectibles, figurines, fashion jewelry, dishware, cards and gourmet coffees at Objects. Carved pelican sculptures and local crafts caught our eye at The Obvious Place. Our favorite MacKenzie-Childs pottery is among the stock at Christine’s By the Bay. Over the Transom carries rare books and self-publishes books for paying authors. Fashion-conscious women of varying tastes are served at places like The Colony Shop, C.K. Collection, M&F Casuals, Kathy Lambert’s, Uptown and Dock of the Bay. There’s much more. We defy any shopper to leave Fairhope empty-handed. Extra-Special Magnolia Springs. This picturesque old community hidden beneath oversize live oaks alongside the Magnolia River is one of the few remaining places to receive mail by boat. It’s the Old South of vintage postcards, enjoying a new lease on life. First, the old hotel along Oak Street was converted into the Magnolia Springs Bed & Breakfast (see Inn Spots). Then came Charlie and Janie Houser, who renovated his grandfather’s stately old riverfront homestead, known as the Governor’s Club for the guests it hosted in years past. Charlie remembered the old Moore Bros. General Store where he used to charge his grandfather’s account for penny candy and wanted to revive a community tradition. He bought the store (which had closed in 1993) and the abandoned post office and merged the two buildings. In 1998, Moore Brothers Fresh Market reopened with the best produce, butcher shop, bakery, deli, coffees and wines for miles around. The onetime post office was transformed into Jesse’s, a 35-seat restaurant named for Jesse King, a fixture at Moore’s store (it’s said he never missed a day of work in 60 years). The fare cooked by a husband and wife team from New Orleans packs in the crowds, day and night. Indeed, the sea of cars overflowing from the parking lot into the roadway across from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and the 1894 Community Hall one Saturday noon turned out not to be for church or a festival. They belonged to shoppers and people waiting for tables in the restaurant or lunches for takeout from the deli. The lunch menu details fabulous deli sandwiches and salads. One big eater of our acquaintance said he ordered a Jesse’s po-boy that turned out to be an entire loaf of French bread with a dozen oysters at one end and fresh shrimp at the other. It was so big he had to give half away. The dinner menu offers Louisiana specialties like shrimp or crawfish creole, stuffed mirleton and whiskey steak. Photographs of old Magnolia Springs along the walls add nostalgia. Jesse’s, 14470 Oak St., Magnolia Springs. (334) 965-6020. Entrées, $8.95 to $15.95. Lunch, Monday-Saturday 11 to 2:30. Dinner, 5 to 9. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in the Southeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2000. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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