The counter where Pam Price and Lee Simonds Brown have greeted Beverly Farms Bookshop customers for 30 years.
The Beverly Farms bookshop opened in 1968. Last week, the shop celebrated its 52nd anniversary with new owners.
Long-time Beverly Farms Bookshop owners Pam Price and Lee Simonds Brown, only the third owners since the bookshop opened in 1968, will hand the reigns over to a new owner this week. Hannah Harlow and her brother Sam Pfeifle live a few towns away from Beverly Farms and are thrilled to have the opportunity to take over this venerable institution of the North Shore.
"I'm moving from one dream job to another," said Harlow, who has worked in book publishing for 20 years. Owning a bookstore has been "a longtime dream.” When she saw that the Book Shop of was for sale. "It seemed too good to be true. It's very close to where I live, it's the exact size I'd written down years ago in my business plan as ideal, and since it has such a great history and is in such a great neighborhood it reduces the risk a little. All the amazing work Pam, Lee, and their dedicated staff have put in over the years, establishing such good will and being such a resource in the community, made the decision even easier."
Pam and partner Lee put the bookshop up for sale in September of 2019 in order to retire. "We are so glad that this beautiful bookstore, which has provided an oasis for book lovers for five decades, will carry on for the next generation of readers," Price said. "With their deep book knowledge and love of reading, Hannah and Sam are the perfect team to carry on this tradition of bookselling in Beverly Farms. We look forward to buying lots of books from them, and we know that our community will give them a warm welcome."
The store will be closed for a week while the new owners update some of the systems. A soft opening is tentatively scheduled for February 3, with a grand opening celebration to follow in March.
