Warren Coville, major Asolo Rep and Ringling philanthropist, dies at 97

For more than 30 years, Warren Coville was a minority owner of the Detroit Pistons, and he proudly wore a championship ring on his hand. But his real passion was in the arts world, both in Michigan and his adopted home in Sarasota, where he became a leader and active donor to Asolo Repertory Theatre, the FSU/Asolo Conservatory and the Ringling Museum.

Coville died Tuesday at age 97 in Sarasota, about 18 months after the passing of Margot Coville, his wife of 72 years.

“He was such a personally loving and wonderful man,” said Michael Donald Edwards, the producing artistic director of Asolo Repertory Theatre, where Coville once served on the board of directors, including two years as president. “He was one of my primary advisers and supporters, and it is clear we are where we are today because of him in many ways. He has been a foundational supporter.”

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Greg Leaming, who recently retired as director of the Asolo Conservatory, said the graduate acting program might not exist without Coville’s involvement.

“He was the driving force behind keeping the Conservatory alive and moving forward and bringing in new people to support the program,” Leaming said.

Warren Coville was minority owner of Detroit Pistons

Born May 17, 1925, in Far Rockaway, N.Y., Coville was raised in Detroit, where he met Margo Triest, a Holocaust survivor, on a blind date in 1946 in just her second week in the United States. Warren and his brother Don ran Coville Portraits, a photo studio. They later started ABC Photo, a photo finishing company, which became Guardian Photo in a merger with Guardian Industries, owned by Bill Davidson.

Davidson purchased the Pistons in 1974, and Coville was among more than a dozen minority stakeholders in the team until it was sold in 2011 by Davidson’s widow, Karen.

Betsy Coville, one of the three daughters adopted by the couple, said investing in Guardian Industries led to a more comfortable life for the family.

“We didn’t grow up with wealth,” she said. “My dad worked. We barely saw him. He had his own business, and he was gone until the wee hours keeping it going. He didn’t come into wealth until after I was out of high school.”

Those investments allowed the couple to help change the lives of others, she said.

Coville was active in education, Jewish organizations, arts

He returned to Roosevelt Elementary in Detroit, which he attended as a child, and launched the “I Have a Dream” program, promising 78 fifth graders that if they finished high school, they would have the ability to attend college or a trade school.

It wasn’t just financial help when it came time for college.

“It was all-encompassing. They helped the students all through school, even in the summers,” Betsy Coville said. “When Facebook came around, the kids he supported tracked down my dad and thanked him. They called themselves ‘the dreamers.’”

The Covilles were active supporters of numerous Jewish and arts organizations in both Michigan and Florida. They established a scholarship fund for independent living through JARC in Detroit and endowed the Coville Memory Care Facility through Junior Senior Life in Oak Park, Michigan. In Sarasota, he served on the board of the Jewish Family and Children’s Services, where the couple created the Coville Counseling Center, and he also served on the board of the Jewish Housing Council.

The arts were a major focus of their lives. Over the years, they amassed a collection of thousands of photographs. His photojournalism collection was donated to the Library of Congress and he gave 1,600 photographs to the Ringling Museum. The couple also donated many pieces of studio art glass to The Ringling, much of it on display in the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion off the new entry hall at the museum. The pavilion opened in 2015.

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The Covilles were among Asolo Rep’s Crystal Society, honoring donors who have given $1 million or more. Warren Coville served as the chair of the theater’s capital/endowment campaign for seven years and contributed a $1.5 million matching challenge for the company’s Staging Our Future Campaign, which included the recent opening of the expanded Koski production facility.

“He came to every single opening night as long as he could. And he was the person who championed us expanding our scene shop to what it has become,” Edwards said. “It just fills me with such pleasure that we’re going to start rehearsing “Cabaret” in the brand new Margot and Warren Coville Rehearsal Hall. Think of what a difference one family can make to the strength and vitality of one arts organization, and they were involved in lots of other things. But he always made us feel like we were number one.”

Leaming said the couple was passionate about the theater’s relationship with the Asolo Conservatory and the young actors that it trains.

“Before I got here, they used to have brunches at their house to bring in new donors, and my first year, they might have five or six people over and maybe 10 students,” Leaming recalled. “Over the course of a few years, that brunch turned into one of the most important support programs for the Conservatory, bringing more people into the fold. They believed in us and the relationship between the conservatory and the Asolo.”

The couple also were supporters of various exhibits at Selby Botanical Gardens.

Funeral arrangements made

In addition to Betsy, who lives in Lutz, Coville leaves behind his daughters Lynn Coville of Westbrook, Connecticut, and Claudia Coville of Sarasota, two grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter, as well as several nieces and nephews.

A graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday,  at Palms Memorial Park, 170 Honore Ave., Sarasota.

Memorial donations may be made to the Coville Assisted Living and Memory Care center operated by Jewish Senior Life in Oak Park, Michigan, at https://jslmi.org/assisted-living/coville-apartments-living-oak-park

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Asolo Rep and Ringling Museum donor Warren Coville dies at 97