The Book House provides a 'refuge for the curious'
By Sarah Chrosniak
You notice it before you reach the porch — the house with a lot of windows, sitting just slightly crooked, as if it once danced and hasn't quite stopped. And in fact, it has danced; it used to be the home of WROF 95.7, an underground radio station that is now defunct. It smells faintly of cedar, old pages, and coffee, but something else more challenging to place lingers — warmth, maybe, or memory. A sign meets the eyes on the large front porch: The Book House.
It opened in June 2024, but it feels like it's been in Floyd forever. As if it grew there, book by book, from the town's own longing. Floyd is largely an unassuming place — just a bend in the Blue Ridge Parkway, where music, art, and mountain air are mainstays — but it had never had an actual, full-souled bookstore. That changed when Leah Cantrell and Kim Dulaney, two women with no formal background in bookselling, looked at a dusty old house and saw not what it was, but what it could hold.
Not only did they come with a business plan, but they also came with stories.
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The Storytellers
Leah had always wanted a bookstore — one filled with children's books, tiny joys, and enough natural light to read by even when it rained. Kim, a physician by training, came to books through a different wound: cancer. She tells people she was "healed twice" — once by medicine, and once by words.
"The idea for The Book House was formed on April 4, 2023," said Kim, "Leah and I met for coffee at Red Rooster, and I was telling her about our family trip to New Orleans, where we found a used bookstore in the French Quarter. One of my children (who was not a reader) found a copy of Jack London's “Call of the Wild,” and read it all the way home from New Orleans in the car, and hasn't stopped reading since. I thought this was pretty magical and was marveling at the power of a good bookstore. Leah said that she'd always wanted to run a bookstore, and we noted that Floyd was without one. We both mourned the fact that the digital world threatened to take over people's lives and wouldn't it be nice if there was a place where people could gather around the written word and form community — beyond divisions and politics — meeting one another in the stories of our lives and the stories in books.
"And so, that day, we decided to open a shop and bought a few books at Angels to start the process. In the weeks following, we walked around town multiple times, looking for the perfect spot, which we found in an old, overgrown house that was beginning the renovation process,” Kim said.
Leah and Kim won a local entrepreneurship grant through the Floyd C4 Business Development Series, gathered up their seed money and small-town belief, and got to work. The building they chose had history: it had once been a dentist's office, and long before that, a family home. Now, its past lives echo gently in every room.
Entering The Book House
Walking through the threshold is like stepping into a metaphor. There's a front parlor stacked with novels; a back room that smells of loose-leaf tea and poetry; an upstairs filled with used books waiting for new hands. Sunlight falls unevenly through lace-curtained windows. A large wooden staircase leads to upper rooms where children's laughter mixes with the creak of floorboards.
Some rooms feel like libraries. Others like a friend's living room. There are places to sit — and not just sit, but dwell.
It is unique because the book house is, in fact, a house, where you feel as welcome as if you were in your own home.
Kim said, "Our mission is to make it a welcoming spot for everyone, no matter who you are or where you are from or what sorts of books you like. There is (hopefully) a little something for almost everyone. We also serve coffee and tea, which you can sip as you walk around the house. We even have a giant tree in the kids' room that you can crawl inside and cozy up with a book. We hope that our environment sparks the imagination and a sense of wonder in the people who come here."
Our store offers a selection of lumber, roofing material, insulation, plumbing fixtures, electrical components, and conveniently located five minutes outside the town of Floyd.
A House that Holds More than Books
To call it a bookstore is accurate but incomplete. It sells new and used books across every genre, yes, but also journals, art supplies, local crafts, and hand-written notes about what to read next. There's a small café offering locally roasted coffee, herbal tea, and baked goods that taste like a neighbor made them.
It's a refuge for the tired and curious. Children tuck themselves into corners with picture books. Locals meet here for slow conversations. The occasional dog curls under a table and sleeps. Each room is curated not just with items, but with intention.
The Place and the Place-Makers
Floyd is a town where people often talk about place — how it shapes us, and how we shape it in return. The Book House fits here the way moss fits a stone. It doesn't just sell books; it expands the narrative possibilities of a town.
"Since it's opened, we've had an outpouring of support from the community. We are especially grateful to people who have donated books. There is absolutely NO WAY we could have made this happen without the donations of our supporters. The first year of any small business is always tough financially, but this has been made a little easier by the fact that donations are a part of our inventory, keeping our costs down," stated Kim.
It opened during the annual Floyd Artisan Trail and immediately became part of the community fabric. Leah and Kim now work with local authors, donate café gift certificates to fundraisers, and accept gently used books with the promise of a forthcoming trade-in system. They're building not just a business but a model for how literary space can live gently inside a community.
Kim said, "We've learned that bookselling is more about connecting the community than selling books--we love our regulars who come and linger and who share the stories of their lives with us. We have also learned that there is a lot to learn about business! Thankfully, the C4 program, Floyd Economic Development Authority, and the Small Business Development Center in Roanoke have been incredible resources to help us learn to run a small business."
There's nothing corporate about it. Nothing sleek. It is imperfect in the way handmade things often are — imbued with the texture of risk and care.
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Quiet and Wordy
The Book House is less a retail project than a lived argument for the value of slowness. It suggests that stories matter not just on the page, but in the places we gather to find them. It asks: What would it mean if we centered curiosity? If we allowed space for quiet enchantments? If healing could come in the form of an old house filled with books?
In the end, it is not a house of commerce. It is a house of meaning. And like any good story, it waits patiently for the reader to arrive.
Visit The Book House and experience it for yourself at 1232 N. Locust St. It’s open daily, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., Mondays through Sundays. Learn even more at www.thebookhousefloyd.com.