Q: How did you get started designing personal library collections?
A: I had been going to estate sales and buying first editions as a hobby, and then a family friend asked if I could help fill out the bookshelves in his new Key Island home. So I interviewed the family about their favorite subjects and put together a personalized library for them. That led to other projects, and I eventually turned it into a business.
Q: What else besides creating libraries does Juniper do?
A: I’ll help people find a set of titles—Mark Twain or Penguin Classics or cookbooks—and create custom printed jackets for them. It turns a ho-hum set of books into a beautiful set for gifting or a personal collection. You can’t just go to Barnes & Noble and get an amazing hardcover edition of Tolstoy, for instance.
Q: What do you think every personal library should include?
A: I like to make sure that the classics are well-represented. Certainly Austen, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Salinger. The Russian writers—Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky—are a favorite and popular at the moment as well.
Q: What’s the craziest request you have ever gotten?
A: I had one client whose author friend was visiting, and she actually didn’t own any of the friend’s books, so she asked me to put together a complete collection of them. I told her I’d get a new collection, but she said, “No, they have to look all read and dog-eared and worn.” So I worked with a supplier whose books are usually too frayed for my projects but in this case was a lifesaver.
Custom library-curation services start at $3,000; 303-946-1494; juniperbooks.com.
