Books, Buyers, and Bushes -- Kennebunk Book Port Grows in Maine

Rich and Ellen Chasse, owners of The Kennebunk Book Port, in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The Kennebunk Book Port, which Ellen and Rich Chasse purchased in 1996, is located in a narrow, cedar-shingled building that dates back to 1775. Originally, it was a rum and molasses warehouse. "It's the oldest commercial building in the port," Rich Chasse told BTW in a recent interview.

The red-trimmed bookstore has had three owners in the last 30 years. It is located on the second floor and in a loft in Kennebunkport, Maine, a plush, understated coastal town of 4,000 in the off-season. In season, 25,000 tourists crowd the town, and the George H.W. Bush family arrives from Texas.

"In the summertime," Ellen Chasse said, "we just have people from away. We have people from all over the world, really, because cruise ship tours come in."

A wooden spiral staircase leads to a cozy loft. Throughout the bookstore, alcoves and small rooms are filled with books.

Europeans buy Maine-related books and the British, especially, buy the American classics of Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Melville.

A printout of monthly sales for the year shows business in July and August rocketing off the sheet like a U.S. space shuttle-more than eight times greater than most of the other months. Beach reads are the propellants. "Normal towns," Rich said, "would be 11 months and Christmas."

Customers enter the 1,100-square-foot Kennebunk Book Port charmer by outside stairs to a deck with an entrance sign that states: "Ice cream, candy, children, barefeet, short hair, long hair, no hair, cats, dogs, and small dragons are welcome here anytime."

Inside, bare wood-board walls and floors are supported by hefty 200-year-old rafters. A comfortable beige sofa rests beside paned windows overlooking circular Dock Square. A wooden spiral staircase leads to a cozy loft and a selection of poetry titles. Alcoves and small rooms are filled with books.

Located in Kennebunkport's busy Dock Square, the red-trimmed bookstore is the oldest commercial building in the port.

The store uses 10 part-time booksellers in summer, and, usually, August outdoes July. (The two months have about the same amount of traffic, but August's customers are bigger spenders who purchase more hardcovers.)

Only once have July sales been greater, and that was in July 2000, when, noted Rich Chasse, "we had a Harry."

On the laydown date of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Chasses opened the store at midnight and 200 customers lined up around the corner. "It was nuts!" Ellen Chasse recalled. "I got so scared. There was nowhere to go. I wanted to run!"

At the bull's-eye of Dock Square in downtown Kennebunkport (founded in 1653), Kennebunk Book Port is situated in a prime location. "If we were across the bridge 150 yards away," Rich Chasse pointed out, "we wouldn't have the business. Owners over there barely make it. Businesses a couple hundred yards on the other side of the square change almost every year. They don't get the traffic. It's 50 yards away. People don't walk up the hill. It's a weird thing."

"Of course," Ellen Chasse added, "we lose a tremendous amount of business being up a flight of stairs because people just walk around, and they've got their heads down." Or they're looking in shop windows at sweatshirts that read: "Summer Home of Two Presidents. George H.W. Bush 41st President. George W. Bush 43rd President."

Politics does intersect with business. A few years ago, George H.W. Bush and Brent Scrowcroft signed 50 copies of A World Transformed at the rocky, seaside Bush family compound on Walker Point, two miles from Dock Square. Secret Service agents called the store to say the books were signed and ready.

"So I went in there," Rich Chasse recalled, "and it was, 'Hello, how you doing, Mr. Scrowcroft.' I pick up a case of books and, you know, being an old salesman, I kick the door open and I throw my hip against the door to close it and George is behind me with the other box -- 'I can get that,' he says. We put the books in the car and shoot the breeze out there for 10 minutes. That's the way they are. Personable people."

The Chasses advertised the signed books in Down East magazine. "You name a state," Ellen Chasse said, "and we got phone calls."

They continue to sell Barbara Bush's A Memoir and continue to get requests for her to sign the book. The Chasses demur. "We're not going to impose on these people," Rich said, "but they do shop here, both of them, and the kids and grandchildren."

While summer is still the prime season, Ellen Chasse said, "the fall has increased every year. Way back when we were young, around here Labor Day they rolled up the sidewalks. Now, the season has extended to the end of October."

The Chasses are Mainers who returned to their home state after life in New Jersey and Massachusetts. (She was a nurse for 25 years; he was in sales and marketing). "We thought we ought to find something we can do into our dotage," says Rich Chasse.

Since retail was a new undertaking for them, he said, that "we really thought we could do it remote control at first. That went away in about two weeks."

Ellen Chasse likened the bookstore business to jumping into the deep end of a pool and not being able to swim. They learned fast.

The Chasses remain open all year, seven days a week. ("We can't afford to go away, and we're not at that point yet when we can hire somebody to manage the store.")

The slower months, however, are a good time for developing outreach. They've been working their Web site for the past four years, selling books at local school book fairs, and delivering books to assisted living retirement communities. The store also serves nine local reading clubs year round, and the Chasses recently bought a nearby cafe and plan to invite the clubs to use the coffee shop.

Next, they're working to develop a newsletter and to set up a system of supplying brochures at local inns, motels, and hotels, so that guests can order books that the store will deliver. They also plan to organize weekly bookmobile trips to the large retirement communities.

Rich Chasse noted that Maine is in a good position for independents. "We get a lot of comment from people who say we have a lot of different things they don't see everywhere else. We like the idea."

-- Steve Sherman