House of Books Celebrates 50 Years in Kent

KENT – In 1976, John Hoffman, a teacher at the Berkshire School, quit his job, moved his family to Kent, Connecticut, and opened up a little book store. Fifty years later, the House of Books is still thriving as a small independent book store, and community hub.

To celebrate the rare feat of small business endurance, the House of Books invited customers, employees, and even a few Appalachian Trail through-hikers to celebrate with gentle jazz guitar, a full spread from beloved local eatery, Swyft, and of course, a whole house of books.

A packed House of Books in Kent celebrates its 50th anniversary Saturday, June 14, with a birthday bash, refreshments and books. D.H. Callahan

Among the attendees was Cathy Hoffman Miller, daughter of John and Carol Hoffman the original owners. Cathy wasn’t even a teen yet when the family settled down in Kent, after years of bouncing from boarding school to boarding school.

While she was happy to establish roots in the quintessentially quaint New England town, it quickly became apparent that this new business was going to be a family affair. Cathy and her sisters were put to work keeping the wire racks full of noir and wester paperbacks, and the shelves stacked with new releases. The sisters would soon enlist their friends to help out with the annual new year’s day inventory counts in exchange for free pizza from the Kent Pizza Garden, one of a handful of businesses still open today.

With a thriving art community in the area, famed mid-century painter, Eric Sloane utilized the store as a base for distributing his art books, often coming into the store to sign copies which House of Books would ship all over the country. They even converted the back of the store into an art gallery for a time, setting the stage, in a way, for today’s Kent Barns galleries.

The House of Books was clearly more than just a store. Kent residents would treat the shop as a place to hang out, taking their time to socialize and fraternize while leafing through pages. Buying something seemed like a secondary priority to gathering together to shoot the breeze. That was just fine with the House of Books.

The Hoffman Family founded the House of Books.D.H. Callahan

Of course, this was all long before the fatal one-two blows of Big Box bookstores, and the online onslaught from Amazon. When the House of Books opened 50 years ago, there were an estimated 10,000 bookstores operating in the United States. In 2019, there were fewer than 2,000.

But manager Ben Rybeck believes the pendulum is swinging back in favor of the little guy. Rybeck was hired as the manager of the House of Books in April of 2020, a time when the whole world was shut down, and in-person shopping was a thing of the past. He witnessed first hand how the community rallied together to support the store that had been there for them over the decades.

Using online tools made more available to small businesses, customers were able to shop the House of Books inventory, sending their purchases directly to their homes, or picking them up outside the store. It was a great chance for the community to be there for House of Books, who had been there for the community for 50 years.

The next 50 years may be hard to predict, but Rybeck seems to be right about one thing. The pendulum is indeed swinging back. Since the pandemic, the number of small, independent bookstores across the country has nearly doubled. That fact, just like 50 years of this beloved store, is truly something to celebrate.