GRANGER — On opening day, even before the boxes of books were all unpacked, the doors at Briar’s Edge Bookery were constantly opening and closing as Granger residents walked in to learn what a bookery is.
“The community showed us right away that we were going to be good here,” co-owner Cameron Nugent said.
Cameron and his wife Shira Nugent opened Briar’s Edge Bookery in April, just four months after they acquired the old pole barn on 12933 Indiana 23 that used to home an upcycling furniture business.
In just those four short months, Cameron and Shira managed to turn concrete floors and walls into a cozy bookstore with whimsy charm.
“We met in a coffeeshop in Kansas City, and we didn’t exactly go into it trying to recreate that atmosphere, but that type of community place where people can come in and just hang out,” Cameron said. “Be around other people that are like-minded.”
Unconventional segway
The couple didn’t always have a dream to open a bookstore down the road from their home but rather the idea spurred after Shira became interested in old teaching literature when they decided to homeschool their autistic child.
“She was just struggling in the public-school environment, so we made the decision to pull her home, and try homeschooling,” Shira said. “In doing that, I just did tons and ton of research trying to learn different types of homeschooling that would not necessarily mirror what was going on at the public school.”
During that research, Shira spent years learning about “the older ways of teaching” and found vintage children’s literature that helped her understand how children were taught and spoken to before modern teaching practices existed.
Old children’s literature quickly became a rabbit hole for the couple who found themselves reading 19th and 20th century tutoring books.
“Back in those times, you could tell from reading the literature about the teaching methods, and the books that were used to teach them, that the kids were taught more respectfully, more directly,” Cameron said. “You’re talking to somebody that you expect to think about something and respond back, and most modern teachings to young children seems to condescend.”
The couple began collecting books from estate sales and eventually started selling a few online, Cameron said, before they were given the opportunity to build Briar’s Edge Bookery.
Settling on the name Briar’s Edge was something Shira had thought of, she said, years before when she was making handmade journals.
“It was kind of a picture of how our homeschool was. We were in between this liminal space between the corporate working world and being at home,” Shira said. “It was a very protective space but also very nurturing and warm. Much like I would expect a little rabbit den to be inside of a briars patch.”
A briars patch is a dense thicket of thorny plants like blackberries or wild roses. To the average human, a briars patch would rip at their clothes and skin. But for rabbits, they provide the perfect place to protect them from large predators and the bitterly cold winter.
Naming the bookstore after a nature-forward and fairytale inviting place fed into the vision the couple had in their head, Shira said, and felt like a good descriptor of the store.
The Br’er Rabbit Tales were also stories Cameron grew up on, he said. In African American folktales, the Br’er Rabbit uses the briar patch as a clever escape after being caught by his enemy, Br’er Fox. The rabbit begs the fox to do anything except throw him into the briar patch, although he eventually throws him in and learns the thorny bushes are actually the rabbit’s home.
“The whole ‘no don’t throw me into the briar patch,’ and that kind of feeling of safety where it doesn’t appear to be,” Cameron said. “I like that idea.”
Bringing back third spaces
The walls of Briar’s Edge Bookery are covered in books and book accessories as far as the eye can see. Rows and rows of nature books, cookbooks, history, religion, graphic novels, romance, young adult and science fiction novels create a dream garden library where books can come to life.
A corner toward the back holds used fiction books collected by the couple or acquired through donations to the store, and the children’s book section also houses a reading nook where children can listen to stories read by their parents or one of the Nugents.
The Nugents have made it a priority to turn the bookery into a third space, a social environment separate from a person’s home, workplace or school.
When people walk in, Shira said, they’re often blown away by the lack of an institutional feel in the space. Instead of finding a clean-cut, uniform bookstore, they’re greeted by sage green walls and vines that climb up pillars.
One day, a young girl came in, “and she was glueing her face to the door, and she was absolutely amazed by it,” Shira said. “She told her mom that she wanted to grow up and have a place like this someday. I was like OK, she made it totally worth it.”
As the owners, the Nugents are finding themselves having “interesting, amazing conversations” with customers every day, Cameron said.
Owning the bookstore and creating a third space has allowed the Nugents to redefine how they view success, Cameron said. For 25 years, Cameron was a technician at AT&T, and he spent five of those years as a manager. When he lost his job, Cameron said, he couldn’t bring himself to fall back into a corporate world.
“We found ourselves looking for a way to redefine success for both our family and our financial situation,” Cameron said. “We went into this whole thing with a definition of success that didn’t look like a business making boatloads of money. We wanted this place to be a community first and a store second.”
Building a community hub has also led to supporting local authors and selling their books in the store, Shira said. The couple also commissioned local artists, such as independent artist Kennedy Moore, to paint murals inside and outside the building.
With only two months under their belts, there’s so much the Nugents still want to do, they said, such as paint galaxies on the ceiling and build clouds above the seating areas. But regardless of the way the store progresses in appearance, one thing will always be true:
“If this whole business makes a dollar by the end of the time that we retire, I will be extraordinarily happy,” Cameron said. “Because it’s made the journey of my life from here on so much better. It’s such a rewarding thing to do.”
Briar’s Edge Bookery
● What: Bookstore with new and used books as well as book accessories.
● Where: 12933 Indiana 23, Granger.
● Hours: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 12 – 6 p.m. Sundays; Closed Monday.
● Price: $5-$30
● For more information: Call 574-393-8036 or visit briarsedgebookery.com.
If you know of a business that should be featured in an upcoming Market Basket column, email Tribune staff writer for Market Basket Jessica Velez at jvelez@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Briar’s Edge Bookery owners strive to create a third space in Granger
Reporting by Jessica Velez, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jessica Velez, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
