Take Note Westport – in The Denniston Rose territory

There has been a bookshop at 106 Palmerston Road in Westport for over 100 years. Then it was Parkhouse Stationery, today the store is Take Note Westport, owned for 18 months by Lisa Hankey and Trish Casey.

The book store building could probably tell a story as engrossing as that of Jenny Pattrick’s fictional Denniston Rose...

It began some time during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, because George Parkhouse bought a bookselling, stationery music and fancy goods business from AC Hansen in 1900 and renamed it Parkhouse Stationery.

IMAGE: A customer enters Take Note Westport

The name was kept through a succession of owners, most lately Alex and Helen Fussell who sold to Lisa and Trish. In the Fussell’s time, the business became a Paperworld, then Take Note. But Lisa swears there were still items for sale with Parkhouse Stationery price tags when she took over!

The two friends, North Islanders married to Westport men, were both working for the local council when they decided to buy the bookstore.

As it happens, Trish got lured back into the corporate world some six months later, and is now GM of the Buller District Council’s holding company. Trish is strong on the accounting side and works on the bookkeeping business chores at nights and weekends.

That leaves Lisa with the day to day running of the store. Her background in project management, communications, media and writing with both Department of Conservation on the West Coast and the local council was sound training for a bookseller. (A more colourful job in her past was as Registrar at the Auckland Zoo, where she found herself feeding quarantined lemurs imported for the zoo – and cleaning up after them!)

First task for the new owners was to begin modernising the store, and as both are keen book lovers, to increase the book offering. It was also important to update the stationery stock.

IMAGE: the interior of the shop today

One key move was to install computer systems and stock controls. Then it was on to smartening the ‘pretty much original’ store to something less dated – done gradually, because locals are fond of their heritage.

When Paper Plus in Merivale refitted last year, some of their shelving made it over to Westport.

Lisa noted with amusement that she got much praise for the new picture flat selection: the stock wasn’t new, it just looked way better in a recycled waterfall stand!

Another area of expansion was to carry arts and crafts materials – the only store in town to cover this area. Take Note Westport also does a lot of special orders to meet local demands outside their usual range.

IMAGE: the interior of the shop

The other big investment shoppers probably appreciate most was the installiation of a heat pump an insulation in the vintage building.

When Lisa and Trish took over, Paper Plus did a re-lay plan for the store which they are ‘chipping away’ at. The new fittings opened the store up, made it look lighter and a lot less cluttered.

All these improvements – a big achievement in just 18 months – made it easier for Lisa to run the store on her own with just part time assistance when Trish took up her new job.

Lisa (pictured above) loves living in Westport, which is a bit unexpected for a Waikato girl who worked in Auckland, even if she was living in Franz Josef before the move.

“Westport is a lovely size, about 5,000 in town and adding up to around a 10,000 when you take in the surrounding areas. There are no fast food outlets, though a Subway opened recently. The kids bike to school safely and you can take the dogs to the beach for a run after work!”

An unlikely combination of the Department of Conservation and the mines at Stockton are the area’s biggest employers, with another mine at Bathurst likely to become operational in the future. Tourism is growing with a new local attraction, a tour of the Banbury mine with a train running through underground mine passages, one of three Denniston ‘experiences’ on offer.

“Check out the Denniston website to get a feel of how cool these trips are,” Lisa suggests.

In this traditional town, shops take a long time to be known by new identities. When Lisa was first in town seven years ago, she asked where she could get keys cut. The answer was “Martin’s.” It took a while to discover that was the prior name of the Mitre 10. So some customers still come to “Parkhouse’s”.

Westport is not totally old world. The business area has security cameras, one of which is outside Take Note and recorded inside the store. When The Read phoned, Lisa was chatting with a local constable about some disturbances over night as he was accessing the footage to identify local hooligans!

The book stock increase has been excellent business for Take Note Westport. Lisa notes that vampires are still huge with buyers, though Stephenie Meyer has been knocked off her perch by new authors Richelle Mead and Lauren Kate.

In line with city stores, she is selling Jo Nesbo titles “and lots of crime”. Janet Evanovich is another local favourite author as are the detective novels of Stuart MacBride set in the grim streets of Aberdeen and featuring DS Logan McRae, and his ex wife, pathologist Isobel MacAlister.

Ken Follett and Clive Cussler are other popular authors with Westport customers.
Lately the store has sold a lot of the latest Kelvin Cruikshank. “It is not something I’d ever read, but wow, has it gone!” comments Lisa.

The Denniston Rose itself is also always kept in stock, and Lisa laments the end of the illustrated version, now out of print, but formerly a steady seller.

Even older titles (mentioned in 1993 book trade history Turning the Pages about Westport booksellers,) Yesterdays In Golden Buller and Coal from the Clouds brings a delighted response from Lisa. “We still sell both these books! Yesterdays is now reprinted in small print runs by Cadsonbury Press, and Coal from the Clouds is still our best selling book on Denniston!”

Lisa says the first year in business was stressful, though now the improvements made have made life much more enjoyable. “But it was an interesting time to take on a business!”