Where Stories Live: Meet the Couple Behind Camino Books
1. Let’s start with your story — how did the two of you meet, and what brought you both to Del Mar?
We met in Berkeley at a new & used, books and records store there. We are avid travelers, throughout California and beyond. We love the coast and especially San Diego County's coastal towns. We were asked to move our store to Del Mar Plaza by Patty and we all thought that was a great idea. Our lease was up at Del Mar Highlands Town Center, where we'd been for the previous 5 years and so we made the move -- and LOVE it!
2. What inspired you to start or become involved in your respective businesses?
Alison and I each had managed bookstores in the Bay Area; grew up as avid readers; and loved bookselling. At some point, as a bookseller, you either find the perfect bookstore to work in or you go out and make one of your own. In 1985, on a beach in Portugal, we decided to make one of our own.
3. How do you support each other professionally and personally while working in or running businesses within the same community?
We have lived and worked together in our own business since 1989. We bring very different strengths and interests to our jobs yet are essentially aligned as to important things like values, aesthetics, intentions, and ambitions. We support each other and talk through whatever challenges and decisions that come up. As with all things, it is a perpetual adjusting, respecting, and caring for everything as best we can.
4. In what ways do your businesses or roles complement each other within Del Mar Village?
Bookstores are complicated places and choosing the books for our store is one of the places where our interests, passions, and skills complement each other. Alison has a great sense of the culture at large and is interested in what trends, authors, subjects are popular or rising, locally and globally. I am more interested in the peripheries, the scholarly, the history of ideas, and the creation or discovery of new ideas, forms, styles. She buys from the larger publishing houses and I buy from smaller, more independent and academic publishers. Though these interests overlap a lot, the balance of efforts blend well and help to make the store what it is.
5. What’s a typical “day in the life” like for the two of you? Any shared routines or rituals?
Most of our lives are shared in that we work most days, separately but together, on how to make the store the best it can be. We divide up the work in a pretty organic way though I tend toward hiring and training people, business contracts and that sort of thing while she handles the financial side of things. We've worked together so long it is a pretty fluid thing.
6. How do you stay grounded and connected as a couple while managing the demands of work and community involvement?
We love traveling (in fact we are traveling right now!) and whether it is just to LA, the desert or the Bay Area, or to Scotland, Mexico or Italy -- we recalibrate, reset and recover from the day-to-day. We see a fair amount of live music, go to museums/art shows, and have a very active social life which are all non-work pleasures that keep us balanced.
7. What do you love most about being part of the Del Mar business community?
The passion people have for the place where they live and/or work. It's palpable. It is a community that recognizes the astonishing beauty of the place and the luck to be here. Celebrating the community here is a strong value for some of us and it's a pleasure to be a part of it.
8. Are there any specific moments or milestones in Del Mar that you’re especially proud of as a team?
Well, we are new here so our first milestone is opening the store itself, and experiencing others' appreciation of it! And we did three weeks before The annual San Diego Book Crawl which was immensely successful, not only for us but for the other 12 bookstores that participated as well! More moments and milestones to come!
9. What are your favorite spots or activities in Del Mar when you're not working?
The beach of course!
10. What advice would you give to other couples considering going into business or working side-by-side in the same community?
It has to be about a third thing besides the two of you -- you have to be passionate about the work, which then provides it's own pleasures and doesn't drain yours. Recognizing each other's efforts, skills, and particular strengths can really enhance your understanding and appreciation of each other. If you don't travel well together, don't go into business together, would be my advice.
11. How do you hope to continue contributing to the growth and vibrancy of Del Mar Village in the years ahead?
Working with the schools, local organizations and businesses, our events program which is just beginning, and with our excellent customer service. We have jumped right into it and work at it every day.
12. Is there anything else you’d love people to know about your journey together—personally, professionally, or as part of this community?
We are immensely interested in books, bookstores and what reading can do for people of all ages, in all aspects of their lives. That passion hopefully is experienced by everyone who comes in -- in the help they receive, the books they find and the time they spend in the store. It has been immensely satisfying to be part of the book world for this long and we just want to share how great it can be.