Phoenix Books acquires fifth location in Vermont

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Susan Morgan, center, owner of Woodstock’s Yankee Bookshop, is flanked by, from left, Kristian Preylowski, Kari Meutsch, Michael DeSanto and Renee Reiner, representing Phoenix Books. Photo by Gareth Henderson

As a Vermont-owned business, Phoenix Books — with locations in Burlington, Chester, Essex and Rutland — eschews the word “chain” for “family of stores.”

This month, the gaggle is growing and will account for a quarter of the state’s 20 independent bookstores.

Husband-and-wife owners Michael DeSanto and Renee Reiner are purchasing Woodstock’s Yankee Bookshop, which, founded in 1935, bills itself as “Vermont’s oldest continuously operated independent bookshop.”
Phoenix Books will keep the name Yankee Bookshop and has signed a multiyear lease at the downtown location, which Susan Morgan has operated since 2001.
“After 15 years of 24/7 ownership,” Morgan said in a statement, “I realized the bookshop needs fresh eyes and fresh passion to continue to be one of Woodstock’s keystone businesses.”
Added DeSanto: “Our job is to keep that going.”
DeSanto and Reiner ran Chittenden County’s former Book Rack and Children’s Pages from 1995 to 2003, only to return to retailing in 2007 by founding Phoenix Books in Essex.
The couple opened a second location in downtown Burlington in 2012 after Borders closed on Church Street. They funded some $400,000 in startup costs with the help of locals who could buy $1,000 in gift certificates in an adaptation of farmers’ community-supported agriculture programs.
Phoenix Books used a similar strategy to expand into downtown Rutland in 2015, when more than 50 people and businesses each pre-purchased $1,000 worth of books while local store manager Tricia Huebner signed on as an investor.
DeSanto and Reiner acquired Chester’s Misty Valley Books last year after Bill Reed, then co-owner with his wife, Lynne, appeared at a New England Independent Booksellers Association conference with a sign on his back that read “Bookstore for Sale. (We’re retiring.) Inquire other side.”
To add Woodstock’s Yankee Bookshop, DeSanto and Reiner are teaming with Phoenix Books Assistant Manager Kari Meutsch and her fiancé and fellow bookseller, Kristian Preylowski, who will begin as business partners with the goal of assuming ownership.
DeSanto said Phoenix Books can support local owner-managers by “providing both the stability of being associated with an established group of businesses” and access to its management group.
A member of Local First Vermont and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, Phoenix Books won the Book Publishers Representatives of New England’s Independent Spirit Award in 2015 and was a national finalist for Publishers Weekly’s Bookstore of the Year Award in 2016.
“We believe that local, bricks-and-mortar bookshops offer something very important to a community — a physical place to go to discover and exchange ideas, to have conversations with neighbors, and to gather as community members,” DeSanto said. “It is part of our mission at Phoenix Books to ensure that local bookshops continue to be a vital part of Vermont’s communities, and to engage with and serve the communities where we do business.” Source: Kevin OConnor VT Digger