.jpg)
Browsing in the Assouline room at the
Miami Beach Books & Books store
© 2009 George Leposky
The Miami area’s foremost bookseller, Books & Books, has moved its Miami Beach store to a new location, deep within the courtyard of the same historic building where it had been for the past 20 years.
Previously Books & Books occupied the space fronting directly on the pedestrian mall at 933 Lincoln Rd., where Diesel blue jeans now are sold.
Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan says the new store, at 927 Lincoln Rd., has four times the shelving of the old one. That’s because the small, intimate rooms into which the new store is divided provide far more wall space than the previous store’s layout had, even though the square footage is about the same.
Store within a store
One of those rooms is devoted to a store within a store, the Assouline Boutique Corner, stocked by Assouline Publishing, Inc., a French firm specializing in “coffee-table” books. These large, elegant volumes – devoted to art, design, fashion, lifestyle, and photography – are intended for display as well as literary content. “We want to create gift books, to emphasize the concept of books as objects and things of beauty,” says Ausbert de Arce, an Assouline executive who attended the Miami Beach opening on Thursday, February 26 with co-founders Martine and Prosper Assouline.
Assouline is expanding from its Paris base to establish stores around the world, including locations such as Dubai, Hong Kong, Mexico City, the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and the Miami Beach and Coral Gables Books & Books stores. “Who else could one go to in the Miami area? Books & Books is one of the three or four premier bookstores in the entire United States,” de Arce says.
A display of Assouline books
© 2009 George Leposky
A proud Art Deco structure
The new arrangement also links the bookstore to its restaurant, The Café at Books & Books, with more food-service seating in the breezeway between the street and courtyard. Design Within Reach, a furnishings store with which Books & Books shares the courtyard, provided comfortable leisure seating in the newsstand area just outside the bookstore’s front door.
The store is in the Sterling Building, a proud Art Deco structure constructed in 1928. Its architect, Victor Hugo Nellenbogen, also designed the Almanac Apartments at 1300 Collins Ave., the Savoy Hotel at 425 Ocean Drive, and other notable structures in the Miami area during the 1920s and 1930s.
Books & Books, 927 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach FL 33139. 305-532-3222. http://www.booksandbooks.com
Note: Click on the "Subscribe" button below to receive an email each time the Miami Travel Examiner publishes a new article.
Comments