Rhode Island’s Savoy Bookshop & Café to Open in Late February

An ambitious restoration project to turn Westerly, Rhode Island’s historic Savoy Hotel into the Savoy Bookshop & Café is finally nearing completion. Following construction delays that postponed last summer’s projected opening, Savoy Bookshop and Café is now slated to open in late February, according to Annie Philbrick, the co-owner, with Patience Banister, of both the Savoy and Mystic, Connecticut’s Bank Square Books.

Savoy Bookshop & Cafe co-owner Annie Philbrick (r) with booksellers Dan Morosky and Kelsy April above one of the staircases.

“We’re going to start shipping books to the store the week of February 15, and we hope to start shelving books in late February. We’re on the homestretch, and there are a lot of moving parts,” said Philbrick, noting that the delays were due to work required to reinforce the structural integrity of the historic building.

“All the joists had to be replaced to reinforce the façade of the building. All of that just added up and added time,” she said. “It’s all custom-made and our builders are perfectionists, so it’s just taking a little while.”

Once the store opens for business, the 2,500-square-foot space will feature a 14-foot marble-topped coffee bar, a sizeable children’s section, and two floors of books. Philbrick said the store plans to host a launch party/grand opening celebration on a weekend in March or early April, between the local school districts’ vacations, so as many people as possible can attend.

The idea to open Savoy Bookshop took root after Westerly’s only independent bookstore, Other Tiger, closed in April 2014. Area developers Chuck Royce and Dan King of 10 Canal, LLC, which owns the historic Savoy Hotel location, offered to build another bookshop and cover start-up costs if Philbrick and Banister agreed to open and run it.

When it comes to aesthetics, the thoroughly remodeled space maintains the integrity of its previous incarnation as a hotel, said Philbrick. It features some of the hotel’s original wooden flooring, exposed red brick, and hexagonal floor tiles that have been used as accents. Columns placed throughout the store are supported by huge steel beams, each featuring nine face-out shelves.

Savoy features ornate wooden columns and a retro feel.

“The new store has this retro New York library-feel — lots of black and white. That was kind of what the architect tried to capture, and I think she did a really good job of it,” said Philbrick. “There’s also a tin ceiling that is really beautiful and lets the light in.”

Workers found an interesting artifact in the building’s basement, which they repurposed for the store: an old-fashioned, boxy-looking glass sign that says “HOTEL” will hang on one of the bookshop walls. Workers also built an additional staircase with cast iron balustrades and installed all new doors and windows throughout.

At this point, all of the store’s furniture, décor, and accessories have been ordered, Philbrick said, from leather armchairs, vignettes, and loveseats where patrons can read and lounge, to an old-fashioned chalkboard, tables, and a long bench with stools for the store’s café.

The children’s section will feature some one-of-a-kind architectural assets, including a secret room with half-height walls decorated with a hand-painted mural, as well as miniature “fairy houses,” whimsical dioramas built into the shelving baseboards so that kids can peer into them.

As it approaches the labor-intensive process of installing the store’s upstairs and downstairs shelving, which were all custom-built offsite, Philbrick said the store is taking a lesson from the past and is keeping the community informed of its progress via Facebook. When Bank Square was flooded during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, its postings on Facebook about the damage and cleanup efforts attracted droves of volunteers who offered to help.

The flooring is a mix of wood and black-and-white hexagonal tile.

“We already have a lot of volunteers who want to come help us put in about 1,700 linear feet of shelving at Savoy, so I think we can get it shelved and, with a lot of help, it will go pretty quickly,” said Philbrick.

Most other aspects of the project have been completed, including staffing. Bank Square Books children’s buyer Kelsy April, an employee of seven years, has been recruited to manage Savoy Bookshop. In addition to about a half a dozen new hires, two Mystic employees have agreed to move to the Westerly store, said Philbrick.

Philbrick’s new event director for both stores, Elissa Englund, has already planned some buzz-worthy events for February, including “A Night of Romance” at Perks and Corks, a bar and café in Westerly. The February 3 event will feature signings with four romance authors from Harper’s Avon imprint: Eloisa James, Sarah MacLean, Maya Rodale, and Megan Frampton; cocktails for purchase; and a romance-themed goodie basket raffle.