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Year after reincarnation,

Webster Groves Bookshop

has re-found its community

by Jane Henderson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

C heryl Bartnett prepared for an empty nest by buying books.

In fact, she also resurrected a bookstore to put them in.
“This is kind of my retirement project,” Bartnett says.

August marked her one-year old store, noting on its website that vacant space during walks. They
contemplated whether to open a store
anniversary as owner of the new/
owners used a literary reference
ALUMNAE IN THE NEWS Although the bookstore business the name. could have the shelves and wood.
from an Emily Dickinson poem for
and asked the building’s owner if they
old Webster Groves Bookshop.
Sometimes lunch patrons walk
Bartnett knew it was a big step, but
has never been a cash cow, Bartnett
is happy with the first year’s sales: “It
thought, “If we decide to do this, we
half-a-block to the new store at 27
surpassed my wildest expectations.”
have it. If we don’t, we have a storage
North Gore Avenue, finding a virtual
locker of cedar we have to get rid of.”
reincarnation of the old Bookshop.
The wood-paneled, corner shop
was a fixture in town for more than
The original rough-hewn cedar
They eventually found a space in
half a century. In 2016, owner Ann
shop closed. As their younger son
original shelves, built by Franciscan
Foy, then 79, closed the landmark at
monks. (The store was founded in
was about to go to college, Cheryl
100 West Lockwood Avenue, citing paneling is on the walls, as are the the Old Webster area when a fabric
her declining health. She, too, had 1965 by Natalie Sheetz and Julie and Neil Bartnett spent weeks
become a bookstore proprietor after Robinson, who hired architect Robert putting up paneling and painting.
her children were grown, buying it J. McClenahan to design it.) She felt her new business wouldn’t
with her husband in 1999. The large white Japanese lanterns quite be starting from scratch. Every
When the store’s closing was are new, but they look like clones of Monday, Bartnett had gone to see
announced, loyal customers mourned the lights that hung for decades from Ann Foy, who was living with her
the intimate space’s homey feel. the shop’s ceiling. daughter. Foy gave her blessing to use
“I’m going to be very sorry to see it Although the store is slightly smaller, the Webster Groves Bookshop name.
go,” Bliss Shands of Kirkwood said in Bartnett says some customers are a She introduced Bartnett to sales
2016. She estimated she’d shopped “little spooked” that it’s so similar. At reps and talked about ordering books.
there for 30 years. “They were awfully least one has looked around confused, “I’d sit there and make notes and
good about ordering books I want. thinking she was in the old store. ask her a million questions,” Bartnett
And the whole interior of the shop Six months after the original says. “It gave her something to be
was so charming.” Bookshop closed, Bartnett and excited about again.”
Bartnett, who had worked briefly her husband would peer into the Foy also wrote letters to former
for Foy, said upset customers even
came in “for one last smell.”
Three years later, the Lockwood
site houses the Clover and the Bee. “ I feel like I’m giving back to
”
The restaurant pays homage to the the community. -CHERYL BAUER BARTNETT ‘77

18 SPIRIT MAGAZINE SPRING 2020