Fool's Abbey
Fool's Abbey is home to a mundane publishing house (Strom & Co.), a magical publishing house (Fool's Abbey Press), and a scriptorium. It is particularly famous for its magical books and manuscripts.
Fool's Abbey is properly known as the Strom Estate. It was originally farmland in northeast Morris Creek, near the Nashville Border. Elliston Strom, a wealthy Nashville publisher with The Talent, purchased the land in 1910 and built his estate there. In 2002, the Strom Estate consists of the original mansion (expanded and modernized), gardens, several family cottages and houses, a business campus which includes the publishing houses, and an authentic 14th century French abbey, from which the estate derives its local name (see History, below).
Industry & Trade
Fool's Abbey is known principally for its printing, publishing, and book production, most of which is done on the business campus on the estate. The Strom & Co. imprint publishes mainly popular mysteries and thrillers for mundane audiences. Strom & Co. produces the bulk of the business and the profits, but their books are so ubiquitous that the imprint is almost taken for granted.
Fool's Abbey is better known for Fool's Abbey Press, which produces books about magic: magical textbooks for school children, magical history, magical theory, magical science. Although the Strom & Co. books are technically more popular and sell more copies, Fool's Abbey Press actually produces more titles, because there are so few publishing houses that specialize in this work and have the equipment and magical type to produce these books (some of which require protections and other spells to stabilize them).
The Abbey proper also boasts a scriptorium with actual scribes. These scribes produce art copies of printed books and magical books which must be copied by hand. The scribes are not only superb artists, but Talented mages, who enchant the books as they copy them. It takes at least a year to produce one of these books, and they are obscenely expensive. Currently, the scriptorium is negotiating with St. Augustine's School for the Talented to copy the Doctrina Oratoris Mortuorum.
History
When Elliston Strom bought the land in Morris Creek in 1910, he viewed it as his country estate and accordingly built an elegant, opulent mansion in the most up-to-date style to show off his wealth. The Strom Estate contained all the amenities of the time, and all the marks of wealth: horses, a garage for the latest cars, a swimming pool. Strom kept his business in Printer's Alley, in downtown Nashville, with all the other publishing houses, and commuted.
By 1920, however, it was clear that the magical publishing part of the business could not remain in Printer's Alley. It required more space and added safety measures, and the other local publishers were getting a little too curious about the odd typefaces and strange noises and smells. Strom therefore took one corner of his estate and built several print shops dedicated to magical publishing. The magical press moved to the estate in 1921. Most of Strom's Talented workers lived in Nashville, however, and had no means to commute to what was then a remote part of Morris Creek. Strom therefore built cottages for his workers, who moved their with their families.
Strom's business became even more successful. He was fortunate enough to contract work with some of the more famous Golden Age mystery authors, and his magical press was one of the few in the nation. The expansion of the business, and the evolution of Printer's Alley from a publishing center to a music and nightlife center, necessitated moving the mundane publishing operation to the estate as well.
While on a trip to France in 1925, Strom visited a 14th century medieval abbey in Provence called Fuil Abbey. The dormitory and some of the Abbey outbuildings had been destroyed in the First World War, and the Abbey itself was targeted for demolition. But Strom's wife, Anna, a ritual mage of great skill, noticed magical circles etched into the Abbey church, and Strom, a man of Talent himself, could feel the magic of the scriptorium. Strom therefore bought the remaining Fuil Abbey buidlings, church, chapter house, and scriptorium (for a bargain price, it is said) and had them shipped, stone by stone, to his estate in Tennessee, where they were reassembled. He added modern wiring and amenities to the scriptorium and chapter house for ease of work. The project was completed in 1929, and Strom opened his scriptorium.
Local Talented society was partially amused and partially envious of the Stroms' importation of a French medieval abbey with clear magical roots, but most mundane residents thought the gesture an eccentric (read: stupid) waste of money. That attitude, combined with the 1929 Stock Market Crash and their inability to pronounce the Old French abbey name, re-christened the Abbey, and Strom's estate, as Fool's Abbey. The name stuck.
Strom's business declined in the Depression (as did everyone else's), but the publishing house was never in danger. Fool's Abbey Press was one of the few magical imprints in the United States, and mysteries continued to be popular. The businesses began to thrive again in the 1940s, during the Second World War, and continued to prosper into the post-war years. Eventually, most workers, who prospered along with the business, bought their own houses outside Fool's Abbey, and their cottages were eventually converted to satellite print shops.
The business sustained some damage in the flood of 1975, but unlike most of Morris Creek, it was not destroyed, since the estate is located on the top of a hill and does not border the creek itself. Strom & Co. continues to make a good profit publishing mysteries, and Fool's Abbey Press is one of three magical imprints in the United States. The scriptorium is unique, and while it actually does not generate much profit, demand for hand-written manuscripts is steady enough to sustain it.
Tourism
Fool's Abbey is partially open to the public during the summer. Tours of the mansion and the Abbey proper, including the Church and scriptorium, are available for a fee. Admission to the gardens is free with admission to the mansion and / or Abbey. A tour of the Strom & Co. printing house is also available for an additional fee. There is a lively gift shop with the usual postcards, t-shirts, curios, and Strom & Co. books.
Talented visitors may, upon identifying themselves, take a tour of the Fool's Abbey Press operation. There is a separate gift shop with books from Fool's Abbey Press.
The gardens are beautiful and well-maintained. In the center of the garden is a beautiful glass gazebo that may be booked for private parties and wedding receptions.
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