<\/p>\n
Susan Novotny, owner of The Book House, holds a floor plan of her store\u2019s new location at Stuyvesant Plaza on Friday in\u00a0Guilderland. The new storefront will be located in the former Eastern Mountain Sports location, between\u00a0Sur La Table and Athleta, not far from its current site.<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
The Book House owner Susan\u00a0Novotny hopes to gather community members to create a \u201cchain brigade\u201d of people lined up from the current to the new location who will move the store, book by book.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
The exterior of The Book House\u2019s future location at Stuyvesant Plaza on Friday in Guilderland. The new storefront will be located in the former Eastern Mountain Sports location, between\u00a0Sur La Table and Athleta, not far from its current site.<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Inside The Book House store\u2019s current location on Friday at Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland. The bookstore plans to relocate to the former Eastern Mountain Sports space within Stuyvesant Plaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Susan Novotny, owner of The Book House, stands in her store\u2019s new location at Stuyvesant Plaza on Friday in Guilderland. The new storefront will be located in the former Eastern Mountain Sports location, between Sur La Table and Athleta, not far from its current site.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Exterior of The Book House\u2019s future location at Stuyvesant Plaza on Friday in Guilderland. The new storefront will be located in the former Eastern Mountain Sports location, between\u00a0Sur La Table and Athleta, not far from its current site.<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Inside The Book House store\u2019s current location on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, at Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland, N.Y. The bookstore plans to relocate to the former Eastern Mountain Sports space within Stuyvesant Plaza. (Will Waldron\/Times Union)<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Susan Novotny, owner of The Book House, is interviewed at her store\u2019s current location on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, at Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland, N.Y. (Will Waldron\/Times Union)<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Inside The Book House store\u2019s current location on Friday in Guilderland. The new storefront will be located in the former Eastern Mountain Sports location, between\u00a0Sur La Table and Athleta, not far from its current site.<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
GUILDERLAND\u00a0\u2014 Inside The Book House<\/a> of Stuyvesant Plaza are rows and rows of more than 40,000 books, surrounded by items like stuffed animals, games, stationery cards and tote bags. At the end of the year, this will all be moved into a new, yet familiar, space in the plaza.<\/p>\n The woman-owned, independent bookstore of 50 years will move from its current space between Bountiful Bread and Apple Barrel Home + Pantr\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0to a space between Sur La Table<\/a> and Athleta<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the same space the bookstore previously occupied nearly 40 years ago.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to be taking a lot of the feel and warmth of this store and making sure that it\u2019s transposed down there so that there is the continuity for our regular customers,\u201d said owner Susan Novotny. \u201cThey\u2019ll feel like they\u2019re still at The Book House.\u201d<\/p>\n The Book House first opened in 1975 in the space where Samantha Nass Floral Design<\/a> is currently located at the plaza, Novotny said. In the 1980s, the bookstore moved to what will soon be its \u201cnew space,\u201d until it moved to its current location later that decade in 1989, Novotny said. Soon, the bookstore will be taking over a space it once called home and where EMS was previously located<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our third move, so third time\u2019s a charm,\u201d Novotny said. \u201c(This shows) you can go home again.\u201d<\/p>\n Conversations about moving started when WS Development took over ownership of the plaza<\/a> in 2022, Novotny said. The new location will offer an open ceiling, a wider but shallower retail area, more backroom space and proximity to\u00a0the plaza\u2019s new multipurpose turf area,<\/a> which the bookstore looks to utilize for children\u2019s programming and events like book talks,\u00a0Novotny said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always good to reinvent yourself and your space,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cIt\u2019s all positive. It gives us an opportunity to freshen everything up, rethink everything and make it a more beautiful and welcoming space to sell books.\u201d<\/p>\n The new space will be 4,000 square feet, the same size as its current space, Novotny said. At the new location, The Little Book House, the bookstore\u2019s children\u2019s area, will be located more toward the front of the store rather than at the back of the store, where it\u2019s located at its current location. It will feature a \u201cmagical-looking arbor\u201d that children can walk through into the small, wooden book house, complete with vines, sticks and more.<\/p>\n The bookstore will close at its current space on\u00a0Dec. 28 and reopen in the new space on Jan. 2, 2026, Novotny said. It\u2019s about a two-minute walk away. With this in mind, Novotny hopes to gather community members to create a \u201cchain brigade\u201d of people lined up from the current to the new location who will pass down the books, book by book.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNeedless to say, the move will be challenging,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cI am now 73, and the prospect of moving 40,000 books absolutely exhausts me.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Recalling the bookstore\u2019s early years,\u00a0Novotny said the store has grown from a space of 2,000 to 3,000 square feet to its current 4,000 square feet. It has faced challenges along the way, including the opening of Barnes & Noble in the early 1990s, which\u00a0Novotny said caused many independent bookstores in the region to close.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very difficult for us, too. We lost a lot of sales, literally overnight,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cIt was an uphill climb to get out of the sales slump that we were in, but ultimately we did.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead, Novotny hopes to grow even more, continuing to provide a service to the community.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my vocation and my avocation,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cI sell books for a living, and I\u2019m very happy to put a book in a customer\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Book House isn\u2019t the only business in the plaza to recently announce a move.\u00a0Plant-based eatery BARE Blends<\/a>, which opened at Stuyvesant Plaza in late 2018, relocated to a space between Blaze Pizza and the Pottery Place<\/a> at Stuyvesant Plaza earlier this month. The 5th Corner Goods & Gifts store relocated to a new storefront within the plaza this year. The plaza has also welcomed a handful of new businesses over the past few months, including Samantha\u00a0Nass Floral Design, Rowan, <\/a>Anthropologie, and Free People Movement. Simone\u2019s Kitchen and Union Supply Hall opened in Stuyvesant Plaza in late 2024. The plaza has also\u00a0seen a number of businesses leave, including Penzeys Spices<\/a> and Ten Thousand Villages.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been a fixture in this community for 50 years now, and I and my staff are absolutely devoted to the community and keeping bookselling and reading alive,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cI hope we sell a whole lot more books.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susan Novotny, owner of The Book House, holds a floor plan of her store\u2019s new location at Stuyvesant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[122692,223,28,88,13478,3729],"class_list":{"0":"post-216681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-alco","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-latestnews","13":"tag-local"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n