On Monday it was official; Wellesley Booksmith had new owners, local residents Bill and Gillian Kohli. The pair, who purchased the downtown Wellesley, Mass., store, were among the first to express interest in buying the business when it went on the market in March. “We were worried about the fate of the store and intrigued for ourselves,” bookstore president Gillian Kohli told PW.
For Kohli, who worked as a lawyer in construction litigation before becoming a stay-at-home mom caring for four children, the timing was right. Her youngest started high school this fall. She will run the store and signed up for bookseller school with Donna Paz. She will also attend next week’s NEIBA fall conference in Providence. Kohli’s husband will continue working as a portfolio manager for Putnam Investments.
In the short term, Kohli plans to keep Wellesley Booksmith very much the same. “We absolutely will keep on the staff,” she says. Nor does she have any plans to change the product mix. “The current balance works well,” she says, adding, “we need to keep an eye on the industry.” But other things, like disentangling backend functions from sister store Brookline Booksmith, where Marshall Smith is the majority owner, have already begun.
After Christmas, Kohli plans to begin sprucing up the store with new carpeting, paint, signage, and a new name: Wellesley Books. "It's an important community place," says Kohli, "and we wanted to reassure people that it's not going to change very much."
