BY MAGGIE RICHARDS
Al Gilmer starts her day with the flip of a light switch inside Stone Hollow Farmstand.
She walks the floor, checking every crevice and corner, making sure the store looks just right, the way it should.
Before the day officially starts, she checks her emails and replies to texts from clients or the team. She performs the small tasks that start the day off on the right foot.
She began her career at Stone Hollow Farmstead as a juicer in Crestline, learning the business from the ground up. Coming from the restaurant industry, she was burnt out and looking for a change, one that was slower in pace and at the center of it, family.
Gilmer found it here, southeast of Birmingham, outside the hustle and bustle of city life, in the small town of Harpersville.
The Root
Stone Hollow Farmstead began with the dream of one woman, Deborah Stone. Long before she grew her first dahlia, she was practicing as an esthetician at her very own Deborah Stone Day Spa, located in Birmingham.
After a decade in the spa business, she felt a pull toward a simpler life, one rooted in the soil rather than in a line of esthetics. After an offer was received to buy the spa, Stone set out for Harpersville, where she purchased a farm, planting her first seed.
Stone’s connection to farming runs deep through her veins. Growing up, she got her hands dirty from riding horses, tending to cotton, and harvesting vegetable crops. Her decision to return to farm life felt anything but daunting. As her imagination took root, the possibilities of what her farm would turn into were endless.
Stone was a dreamer, and those around can attest to this. Gilmer frequently catches Stone saying, “I’m not a details person–I’m a big-picture person. I still care deeply about the details, wanting everything tied up with a bow, but I am always about the big picture.”
Gilmer depicts Stone’s journey as different from the rest: “Most farmers start by making pickles and jams, or they start with flowers and then move into pickling. Eventually, they might try making soaps or skincare products.”
Stone, however, took a different route: “She started with skincare– esthetician-grade, high-end, beautiful products because that’s what she knew,” Gilmer explained.
Using the herbs she grew from the Farmstead, Stone began to develop her own small-batch skincare line using hydrosols–the distillation of plants-and by 2003, Botanikō was born.
Her dreams did not stop there; she then “made jams, and eventually she got into flowers. And not just any flowers– she tackled the hardest ones to grow, dahlias. I tell people, we make everything, and we did it all backwards. But that’s what makes it fun and part of what makes everything really special,” Gilmer exclaimed.
Today, Stone Hollow Farmstead is run by Stone and her daughter, Alexandra “Alex” Stone-Flowers, who works as the co-founder and creative director of Botanikō Skin and Stone Hollow Farmstead.
Partnered together, the Stones were able to open two retail storefronts in both Downtown Birmingham with the latest in Homewood.
Muck Boots and Blended Linen
“We don’t see as many female farmers in the South,” said Gilmer, “and I think it throws people off, but of course, Deborah has taken it all with grace over the years.”
Defying the norms is what Stone does best. In the words of Gilmer, “Some people even have a hard time seeing Deborah in muck boots instead of her really fun, beautiful linen sets.”
However, the true uniqueness of Stone Hollow Farmstead goes beyond a sense of style. It’s the close-knit family unit that is the glue to the business.
Gilmer expressed how her home life differs from the relationship she has with her team today, saying, “I come from a family that was just me, my mom, and dad, because I grew up on a farm, we didn’t have a lot of neighbor kids to play with,” she continued, “and so I now really get to see kind of everyone’s relationship with each other.”
And what makes her stay, “Is the relationships we have with each other that are so beautiful and ever-changing in my life. At the end of something difficult that we all experience, I just go, ‘I am so happy I did this with you guys’.”
Flowers are for Everyone
Before the team even arrives, she’s already continued her work, sorting through the flower cooler and carefully arranging the bouquets.
As she flips the sign to “Open,” she is ready to greet the first customer.
Now, Gilmer works as the Stone Hollow Farm Stand’s General Manager, and for the past eight years, she hopes for her customers to experience just one thing: The Dahlia Bar.
“You get to see people gaining confidence in themselves. It’s always fun to watch shoppers at the stem bar, learning that flowers are for everyone, not just special occasions.”
Whether Gilmer is in the pantry or the dahlia fields, one thing is for certain: Everything that happens in the family, happens around the farm.
“You cannot help but learn through osmosis when you are around Deborah Stone.”