Books Do Furnish a Room
05 Jun 2016
Juniper Books founder makes his own niche in a changing industry
By Mary Reed When Thatcher Wine was a Dartmouth College student in the early ’90s, he often found himself in the special-collections library, looking at books from the 18th century along with handwritten correspondence from the college’s founder. He majored in history and art history, throwing in a healthy dose of studio arts classes. Though he immediately went on to work in management consulting, books were always a side project, particularly collecting and selling old and rare editions. Then Wine moved to Los Angeles and launched an Internet startup “a little bit too early,” and it ended up going bust. Having quickly tired of LA’s car culture, he was spending vacations in Colorado to ski and enjoy what seemed like a better quality of life. He moved to Boulder in 2001 and started collecting and selling books in earnest. “I’d go to estate sales, library sales, buy books, put them online,” he says. “I’d go to Colorado Springs to buy out 5,000 books”—the inventory of a store going out of business. Juniper Books was officially launched.
Bucking Some Trends, Embracing Others
Juniper Books sells more than 100,000 books a year and is growing. How is this business bucking the trend of bookstores closing left and right across the country? “I think people who talk about the demise of the printed book … totally missed the whole story of the beauty of a well-made book,” Wine says. “Books are really nice for decoration. It makes a home feel like a home.” Kimberley Bruckmann, owner of the Boulder-based interior-design firm Potlatch 30, has worked with Wine, and she agrees. She points out that 3-D architectural renderings often show a sample bookshelf with the “books” all one color, like gray, so they’re not too distracting. “It is crazy, like, how did he think of it? It seems obvious that it would be a great idea,” Bruckmann says, adding that books as an art installation will appeal to both the book lover and the art lover who isn’t necessarily a book lover. “He covers both people,” she says, “and that’s hard.”
Mary Reed (www.maryreed.biz) is a freelance journalist based part-time in Boulder. Her latest book is Best Easy Day Hikes Fort Collins (FalconGuides).
