In 2008, David Del Vecchio opened the first Idlewild Books, a 1,100-square-foot bookstore specializing in travel books and international literature located in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. Before then, he had spent 10 years at the United Nations as a press officer for humanitarian affairs.
"Initially the store was devoted just to international literature and travel," Del Vecchio said. "I was looking to do something different, to get out of the U.N., so it was a way to combine those interests." At the store, books are organized by country and geographic region, with fiction and nonfiction titles alongside conventional guidebooks. He continued: "There were always places to find travel books, but it was difficult to find literature related to Nepal or Indonesia or France, unless you had done research before you went to a bookstore, because everything was just A-Z."
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| David Del Vecchio | |
For a time, Idlewild was a conventional bookstore--author signings and book launches were common, and there were event series on literature in translation as well as humanitarian efforts around the world. In part because it seemed print travel guides "might not have an endless future," as Del Vecchio put it, he sought to shore up the store's business in 2010 by experimenting with language classes.
"It was something we thought we'd offer on a smaller level, as an activity or event like any other," said Del Vecchio. The classes, though, proved tremendously and surprisingly popular. "They exploded."
Customers started calling the store and requesting classes in more languages and for different levels of fluency. Subsequently, Del Vecchio began scaling up Idlewild's offerings. In Idlewild's first two years, Del Vecchio and his staff were putting on three or four traditional bookstore events per week; it was not long until the only events they hosted of any sort were classes, and today Idlewild Books runs French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic classes for speakers of varying skill levels (and, come this fall, there will also be classes in German and Brazilian Portuguese).
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| Classroom area at Idlewild | |
Classes are held throughout the week, with evening and afternoon sessions available. Courses run for eight weeks and are capped at 14 students, with the average attendance 12. Evening classes are $295 for eight weeks, while daytime classes range from $210-$225. All of Idlewild's teachers are native speakers with considerable experience teaching Americans.
"I think we were surprised by the response just because it's New York City, and we thought there were already a lot of places to learn languages," Del Vecchio said. "But I think people were excited about the idea of taking a class in a bookstore, in a non-formal atmosphere. It didn't feel like a school. And that the teachers are from those countries lends the classes a culturally authentic feel."
Around the same time that Idlewild started offering classes, Del Vecchio began stocking foreign-language books. "Being a bookstore with an international focus, we always had requests for books in foreign languages," he said. The Manhattan store now carries a modest selection of foreign literature in French, Spanish and Italian, as well as a smattering of children's books in Mandarin Chinese. Despite the relatively small size of the selection, Del Vecchio called it a "vital part of the business now."
In 2012, Del Vecchio opened a second Idlewild store in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Almost exactly half the size of the Manhattan store, the Cobble Hill location is something of a satellite operation: it hosts language classes and carries foreign-language books, but does not stock travel guides or literature. And in the beginning of 2014, Del Vecchio opened a third store, this one in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It is the same size as the original Manhattan store, and hosts language classes and sells foreign-language books as well. Unlike the other Idlewild stores, it also carries artwork related to various countries, such as screenprints of the French alphabet, prints from classic foreign-language books and framed old maps, mostly in the $35-$60 range.
"We opened those two locations just because the classes here were all selling out," recalled Del Vecchio. "As people were registering, we would ask them for their ZIP code and we realized that a lot of people were coming from Cobble Hill and Williamsburg."
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| Idlewild in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn | |
Cobble Hill, Del Vecchio continued, is a much more "neighborhood-y" area than either Williamsburg or Manhattan. The store there has less traffic during the week than the other two and is much more focused on the language classes. Opening that store, Del Vecchio said, felt a bit like a side project; the third store, though, has become something of its own animal. The decision to sell artwork at the Williamsburg store, he explained, stemmed from a few different impulses.
"We did it partly because we thought it would be fun to do," said Del Vecchio. "We've never really carried merchandise before; this was a way to play with that and be true to the themes and spirit of the store. Williamsburg is also a pretty young neighborhood: we weren't sure that selling only books was going to draw people. And we figured there are probably a lot of people who are moving in with a lot of blank walls and looking for affordable artwork."
Considering that he opened a new store just this past January, Del Vecchio has no major changes planned for the immediate future. "It's still a pretty small operation," he said. "In a way we're kind of consolidating." This year, he's worked on redoing the Idlewild website, creating a strong visual identity among the three stores, and updating class-related materials. "The third store is going well, but there's a big difference between two stores and three stores. Four is kind of unthinkable. Maybe someone who has a third kid will tell you the same thing: there's a big difference between three and two." --Alex Mutter