Sarasota's Bill Wise dies at 92

Bill Wise was known by many titles — the “most handsomest man” in Sarasota, every “Sarasota lady’s favorite dinner partner,” a real Southern gentleman.

An active presence in Sarasota’s arts and philanthropic scene since he moved here in 1987 with his wife, Margaret, Wise died Sept. 12 at 92.

“He lived a nice long life,” Margaret Wise said. “It just wasn’t long enough. Not for someone like him.”

Their love story was a whirlwind. They met on Dec. 14, 1976 and were married Jan. 18, 1977.

“We always laugh it took us six weeks,” Margaret Wise said. “It wouldn’t have taken us so long, but I had to get a divorce and he had to break an engagement.”

Although she had been separated from her first husband for 12 years, neither had filed for divorce. Margaret and Bill Wise planned to marry in Texas, but ended up tying the knot in Little Rock, Ark., one of the few places where one could legally sign divorce papers and marry on the same day.

“That love at first sight thing — that’s what it was,” Margaret Wise said. “It does happen, and it never changed.”

She said her husband had a way of making the world feel big. A lawyer, he served as the general counsel for Shell Oil in Houston.

“We have done everything, been everywhere,” Margaret Wise said. “He had a fabulous career and traveled all over the world.”

But he also had a knack for making the world feel small — like they were the only two people in the room.

“It was the two of us,” Margaret Wise said. “We had a lot of friends, but it really was just the two of us.”

It was a characteristic indicative of all his relationships. He was intelligent, articulate, well-read, and a kind and generous listener.

“He would take time to sit and make you feel like you’re the only one he wanted to talk to,” said Teri Hansen, a friend of 15 years.

A discussion with Bill Wise was never boring. Not one for small talk, he preferred politics, literature, ideas or events.

“We would frequently get together in the afternoon for quiet time in his house and just sit and talk together about ideas that he had, books that he had read,” friend Deb Kabinoff said. “He was an avid reader.”

His friend Molly Schechter said his walls were a testament to his love of books. He had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He was known to wander in and out of bookstores for hours.

Hansen said when they would travel, they always knew where to find him. “We would always find him in a bookstore,” she said.

He turned 92 in August, and his wife said they had planned to go to New York City in October for a late birthday celebration. He wanted to visit as many bookstores as he could. Although he had a particular affinity for the classics, his adoration of the written word was not bound by genre.

“You name it,” Hansen said, “he loved to go to old bookstores that sold old books.”

He was a man of well-educated conviction, but he was never obstinate, friends said.

“He did not have a closed mind,” Asolo Repertory Theater’s Producing Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards said.

It’s hard for him to imagine the Asolo without Bill Wise. He and Margaret Wise attended every opening night during Edwards’s 11-year tenure.

Bill Wise never lost sight of what makes Sarasota’s art community what it is — its people. As a philanthropist, he fostered relationships in a way that only he could.

“He understood and appreciated that to build a great arts organization you had to have tremendous, real support from the people in the community,” Asolo’s Edwards said.

In the end, it’s the mark of a truly good person whose friends speak more of who they were than what they did. Bill Wise did many things. He argued court cases before the highest courts in the country, but his true legacy lives in the people he changed for the better.

“I am going to miss, in a larger sense, what he represents,” Edwards said. “A real kind of fundamental decency and goodness as well as intelligence. He was a good influence on everyone around him.”