Businesses have come and gone on the strip of Main Street in Garrettsville, but The Village Bookstore is one that has remained a constant. The local shop that sells used books will celebrate its 20th anniversary in October.
“It doesn’t seem as long as it sounds,” Owner Ellen Eckhouse told The Weekly Villager on Sept. 18. “It has gone really fast. I am glad to be a staple in Garrettsville’s community. I am thrilled the bookstore has been around for 20 years.”
Eckhouse opened The Village Bookstore’s doors in October 2005 when her husband, Mark, and his business partner purchased the three-story building. Eckhouse, a 1985 Hiram graduate, said that her husband presented her with the opportunity to open a bookstore on the lower level.
According to Eckhouse, it was an opportunity that she could not pass up.
“It was a little nerve wracking in a way because I didn’t know how to really do that,” she acknowledged. “I got a lot of help. You had to get a vendor’s license and I had to go to village council in Garrettsville and stuff like that to tell them what business was going in here.”
For Eckhouse, owning a shop that sells used books was always something she had thought about.
She said that when she was a child, she noticed her older brother receiving all sorts of books in the mail. She decided she also wanted to start collecting books especially after reading the biography of acclaimed author Louisa May Alcott, well regarded for her nationally recognized literary piece “Little Women.”
“I read her biography and she had a really interesting life, and I was like ‘Oh she is so cool, and I am going to be like her’ and collected Louisa May Alcott books so that started my book collecting,” she said.
In addition to collecting novels written by Alcott, Eckhouse said she developed a fondness for reading.
“I always loved going to bookstores,” she added. “You go into an old bookstore or used bookstore and whatever and even some used ones and you are like ‘Wow this so cool, I would like one of these.”
Eckhouse’s opportunity came in 2005, 10 years after she and her husband moved to Hiram from Ravenna. Although Eckhouse was diving headfirst into a new business venture, she had plenty of books to offer to the public as she had amassed an impressive collection.
She said that she enjoyed shopping and would usually purchase books from library sales, rummage sales, estate sales and garage sales.
“People would call me sometimes if they are cleaning out grandma’s house and sometimes, I would buy a whole library,” she noted.
She named her store The Village Bookstore to commemorate the unpublished novel that her husband wrote, “Map of Middlepie”, as the book was about a fictional Village. While she studied music at Hiram, her husband graduated with a degree in religion and philosophy.
Eckhouse said that her family had been blessed with creative talents, saying they represented the foundation for a liberal arts education.
She added that she also learned to adapt, not having had the most diverse collection of reading material when she started her business but learned about what her customers liked and purchased those books.
She said that specifically selling used books has given her flexibility, offering her customers books that are not even in print anymore. She also credited her close group of friends for donating books to her business.
As The Village Bookstore approaches its’ 20th anniversary, Eckhouse has expanded her offerings from only books to tote bags, baby onesies, greeting cards, teddy bears and pins.
Eckhouse said that The Village Bookstore’s greatest challenge came during the COVID-19 pandemic but the undying loyalty of the customer base that she had cultivated in her many years of business kept the store flourishing.
In addition to becoming a popular destination for Portage County residents, Eckhouse highlighted the strong customer base that existed beyond.
“I have customers from Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown and all over,” she said. “I have a couple of customers that don’t even live in the country but every time they come to visit; their relatives say that The Village Bookstore is one of their stops.”
