Looking around the small Southland Drive storefront in late April, Wyn Morris has a positive outlook on the view that might be overwhelming for anyone other than a man on a mission. The boxes of books are stacked up in what will be the main retail space tower, in some cases, over Morris' head-a mountain of cardboard housing paper and glue, covers keeping words of countless authors in an order yet to be determined.
This is the new incarnation of an old favorite. This is the Morris book shop.
"It's kind of like Christmas in here," Morris says. "Some of the boxes we'll open and it could go right on the shelf. Others of it, it's just bits and pieces all over the place."
Even though Morris and business partner Hap Houlihan agree that things will have to be placed and replaced several times before it's all just right, it doesn't stop them from lovingly organizing and categorizing the tomes-even highlighting favorite titles or selections of interest so that certain areas of the work-in-progress, taken alone, might be the completion of a long-held dream. As if on cue, Houlihan illustrates the point.
In fact, the thought of owning a bookstore has been a work-in-progress for nearly as many years as Houlihan and Morris have known one another, but the timing only came together recently.
Houlihan places their meeting in 1989, Morris agrees and describes their first experience working in the book business: they were hired just a couple
of years later-together-as Christmas help at Joseph-Beth.
Both agree that Joseph-Beth was the first seed of what Houlihan calls a pipe dream. "The first thing I did (when considering opening a store), as a somewhat practical person, was to shut myself up," he continued. "At first, I didn't even allow myself to see the practicalities of it."
Morris and Houlihan are both careful to praise the bookseller that gave them their start, and to delineate the niche in which they will function as a smaller shop.
The feel of a small shop, according to Morris and Houlihan, and the way it's managed, is different than when there are hundreds of employees in several locations across state lines. There is a freedom from the uniformity that is often required in larger, corporate settings.
"When you walk in, we're hoping that people feel like it's been hand-picked and carefully stocked," Morris said. "We want to put together the best sectionsÖand the rest of it is up to the customers. I'm counting on our customers to lead us where we need to be."
At this point, Morris and Houlihan are joined briefly by visitors-a couple of friends who worked with the two at another mutual workplace, the University of Kentucky Press. They drop off a staple of the renovation and stocking time at the shop, take-out food, and prompt another reflection on the journey that has brought them to this point.
While Morris worked as a sales manager through his time at the press, generally doing a lot of the same tasks-selling the books to shops-Houlihan took on odd responsibilities. "My title ran off my business card," he laughs.
Between them, there is more than 20 years of bookselling experience-in many or all aspects of the business. But many people who have started down a path of big business dreams realize that oftentimes it's not the qualifications-the requirements on paper-that must be met before the dream is realized. This couldn't have been truer for the two friends, who share a desire based on more than an attempt at creating a successful venture.
"What we're trying to do is just make a place we all really like coming to-and that we think about when we're not there," Morris said. "So few people have that in their job, you know, it's what you're always looking for."
Morris grew up in a family where his father, Lexington lawyer Leslie W. Morris, II, loved his work "like crazy." He learned that value from the example, but his "epiphany" came later, after his father and stepmother, Kaye Craig Morris, were among those lost in the Aug. 27, 2006 crash of Flight 5191.
"And just to complicate matters, my mother, Patricia Morris, passed away last April of cancer, and so it makes your head spin in a thousand different ways. It just sort of changes everything in a sense. You're just thinking, 'I'm going to step out of the house and'-it's not like I'm being paranoid, but you know-'I might slip on the ice and die.' It's like, stop messing around. And, not only was it something I wanted to do-was ready to do-but it was right for Lexington, too."
Morris left the press in June of last year, using the professional sabbatical to "decompress and spend some time with the kids, and figure out if I should get a job or do this."
Once the balance tipped toward books, Morris found cosmic inspiration in the Houlihans. The old Morris book shop was a pillar of the Lexington literati and, though one might expect a connection to Wyn's family (there is none), it was actually directed by Joe Houlihan, Hap's great uncle.
And then came Hap. Though Morris had already decided to start the store, had found the location and had begun the process of transforming the space, it wasn't until he began hanging sheets of newspaper in the windows that the realization came-he needed help. "I got through one (layer) and realized I couldn't do anymore," he said.
"I think he was a little afraid he wouldn't be able to pay me what I would demand and I was a little afraid that he wouldn't need someone who is not a carbon copy of himself," says Hap, of the dance the two did in consideration of the partnership, then continues. "We could have been like the couple that never went out-because one looks at the other, who looks down, and then the other looks, and they never make it happen."
Morris interjects at this point, "But, our eyes met across the room."
"Ok, that's enough of that analogy," counters Houlihan, and they both laugh. "I told him long after he decided to start the store to consider me. I'll take a hit financially. I've never been terribly concerned with money. I've always thought, I'd rather be happy than $5,000 richer a year."
Thankfully, both Houlihan's and Morris' families agreed that this was a good move.
Houlihan's wife, Lori, also knows the trials and tribulations of retail, but wasn't concerned with the step and what it might mean for their sons, Murphey and Simon (aged 13 and 7, respectively).
"I'm so glad (my wife) didn't say, 'What are you doing?' She owns Isle of You, downtown. If she'd have said, 'What are you doing, endangering our children by having two people in small businesses?' I would have second-guessed it."
Second-guessing isn't in the plans for Morris and Houlihan, who see the Morris book shop. as a long-term venture. "It's where I want to grow oldÖer and I guess, take the opportunity that came through very unfortunate circumstances to basically make myself the perfect job."
Morris' family, including wife, Vicki Sword, and kids Max and Owen (aged 11 and 4, respectively), as well as the young Houlihans, have been fixtures.
"We hope (Murphey and Max) will be two of our best employees, our elder sons. And not too far down the pipeline, this will be their cool summer job," said Houlihan.
The vision the two have for books is only the first step. Both are big believers in the local economy and plan to begin their next big project of community engagement once things settle down at the store. "We definitely want, down the line, to be able to build a real, sort of, community-based coalition of proprietorships, if they are wholly and locally owned, to get a localism movement going in Lexington, to get it going a lot stronger than it is right now."