THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604230188
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT McCASKEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 129 lines
It has the ambiance of an English bookstore from earlier in the century.
A phalanx of used tomes packs tall, wooden shelves. A woman sits reading in a creaking chair. Cats romp along an old book press on top of the front counter.
``This is a traditional used bookstore - you don't see many of them anymore,'' said H.L. Wilson, who owns the Bibliopath Bookshop & Bindery with his wife, Linda.
Located at 251 W. Bute St. in downtown Norfolk, the site turns back the pages of time in an urban landscape bound for the future. Since 1989, the 1,200-square-foot shop has been a rendezvous for loyal customers and book collectors from around the region.
Although the Wilsons are selling the business May 1 to open a used bookstore in New York's Hudson River Valley, they expect few alterations when the shop changes hands.
``The new owners want to keep it going the same way we've done,'' H.L. said. ``We'll be showing them our book-pricing and buying practices and familiarizing them with our customers. But we will be taking the bookbinding service with us.''
Linda said she and her husband ``handpicked'' the new owners, turning down other interested buyers.
``We have refused some people,'' Linda said. ``The new owners have the passion and commitment that we feel comfortable leaving the bookstore with.''
The new proprietors, the husband and wife team of Uwe Wilken and Susan Lendvay of Virginia Beach, say they plan to keep things much the same, except for changing the name to The Bibliophile.
``We want to maintain a consistency, no abrupt changes to indicate a different place,'' Wilken said. ``What they have there is wonderful. We'll be kind of stepping in. Eventually, we will add our own personal touches. We might put in a little more of a metaphysical selection because of our backgrounds.''
Wilken is from Germany, and Lendvay is from Hungary. They met at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. Both are avid readers and book lovers. Lendvay has worked in two bookstores.
Keeping the Bibliopath as is means maintaining a selection of some 20,000 titles covering subjects from 17th-century manuscripts to the classics to texts on sheet metal design to stories from the ``Star Trek'' series. The store stocks used books only and does not carry current best sellers.
``This is a general readers' bookstore emphasizing good literature that has stood the test of time,'' Linda Wilson said. ``We have primary sources in every academic field. We're strong in the classics, history and science.''
Books and documents are bought, sold and appraised. Most selections are in the price range of 50 cents to $7.50. But some of the oldest and most rare titles go for as much as $1,000. One of H.L. Wilson's philosophies that has been part of the business' success is to ``pay as much for a book as we can, and then sell it for as little as possible.''
Brian Pafumi is an avid reader and plays guitar in the band Combine. The Bibliopath is a frequent stop when he's in Norfolk.
``I travel a lot, and this is my favorite bookstore,'' Pafumi said. ``They have a lot of great authors and reasonable prices for the economically challenged.''
Another draw is the store's focus on customers. Loyal patrons Loretta and Benjamin King drive from Newport News and say they are a little concerned about the change of ownership.
``When you come to a store like this, there's a comfort level established,'' said Benjamin, an avid reader and author. ``The owners are very helpful. They call us when they've found a book they think we might be interested in. And the selection is wonderful.''
``I'm a voracious and very eclectic reader,'' Loretta said. ``I hope they keep this selection and, most of all, the ambiance.''
The Wilsons say that the high rent of urban areas has dwindled the number of bookstores like the Bibliopath, places where ``people can hang out and read, browse and talk books, and buy at reasonable prices.'' But the owners emphasize that the recent proliferation of large chains has not hurt business.
``The big retailers don't compete with us,'' H.L. explained. ``They can't match our prices and give the personalized service. We find our customers books that aren't in print anymore, like `Painting As A Pastime' by Winston Churchill. Chains can't figure out a way to do a used bookstore because it's such an idiosyncratic business.''
H.L. and Linda, 54-year-old Norfolk natives, have been collecting books since they were children, long before they met when working for Chesapeake Social Services. Married in 1973, they both have English degrees. They always had planned to open a bookstore, but fate moved them along in the early 1980s when their farmhouse in the Chapel Hill/Durham area of North Carolina was severely plagued with busted pipes and major structural problems. Fed up with home maintenance, they sold the house and moved back to Norfolk to realize their dream.
In April of 1984, they opened Wilson's Rare and Used Books in the 4100 block of Hampton Boulevard with about 5,000 books they had accumulated over the years. The business took off immediately. Customers included neighborhood residents, young and old, students, and Navy personnel needing some good reads before being deployed.
``I don't care what anyone says, we have a city of readers,'' Linda emphasized. ``Our customers came from a cross-section of the public.''
In 1988, they shut down the store for nine months to learn bookbinding in Northampton, Mass., at a center of the book arts. The couple returned home and in the spring of 1989 opened the Bibliopath, a name coined by Linda one autumn afternoon in New England.
``We're far beyond bibliomania, we're bibliopaths,'' Linda said. ``It's almost to the point of a pathology.''
After seven years of success at the Bibliopath's downtown site and another store of the same name in Hertford, N.C. - which also is being sold - the couple said they are ready to move on for two main reasons. Both of the Wilsons are vegetarians, with H.L. being an organic gardener. They have wanted to combine their love of selling books with growing their own food, but their present site wouldn't allow it. They say the Hudson River Valley is perfect for the two pursuits.
``We've found an excellent area of the country where there are many organic farms and gardens, a dedicated intellectual community and a large reading public,'' Linda said. ``It's near the Woodstock area. We're old hippies except we worked harder than they ever did. We missed the first two Woodstocks, but we'll be there for the third.''
The Wilsons will train the new owners for most of May and plan to move to New York in late summer. In New York, they will retain the Bibliopath Bookshop & Bindery name and hope to open the new site early in 1997.
The couple says they will miss the shop but are confident that their patrons will be in good hands.
``The new owners will be running the store in the same spirit as we did,'' Linda said. ``We're not leaving our loyal customers bereft. They'll have a wonderful store run by wonderful people.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JIM WALKER
Linda and H.L. Wilson, left, are selling their bookstore to Uwe
Wilken and his wife, Susan Lendvay. Daughter, Lisa Wilken, is at
right.
by CNB