This literary spirit is pretty fun in corporeal form. Haunted Burrow Books has made a spooky story-filled home on 15th Ave E.
A recent power outage helped set the appropriate mood in the bustling commercial district on the top of Capitol Hill. Inside Haunted Burrow, a reading group gathered, divining with tarot cards “in the back of the store by electronic candlelight.”
CHS reported here as summer began on the plan from owner and editor Roxanne Guiney to Bring Haunted Burrow and its offerings of “horror, dark fantasy, sci-fi, and other moody genres” into brick and mortar form in an empty commercial space destined for eventual demolition and redevelopment.
The store is a temporary retail experiment for the horror and dark fantasy book shop and Guiney after growing the business with flea markets and online sales.
Life for any small business can feel short and fleeting but it is especially the case on 15th Ave E as neighborhood developer Hunters Capital works through the maze of aligning the city’s public development process with economic conditions and financing and construction windows. At the start of summer, the city’s Department of Construction & Inspections issued a key decision approving the plans for a six-story development to rise on the block.
The project will not be breaking ground anytime soon.
“When interest rates and construction costs go down and and rents go up, we will have a bankable deal and we will get a loan and start construction,” a Hunters representative told CHS earlier this summer.
In the meantime, new spirits are haunting the block. Haunted has a new neighbor with lots of experience living amid the uncertainty of Seattle’s redevelopment waves. Art cafe LOVECITYLOVE has moved in on the corner and now fills the space where neighborhood convenience store ShopRite served the street for 30 years. LOVECITYLOVE’s schedule ebbs and flows from coffee and juice to music and DJs to sewing class nights.
Others on 15th Ave E are preparing for longer stays. The former home of Casita International across the street — a sad loss of one of the best window shopping windows on the Hill when it shuttered this spring — is being prepared to become a new barbershop from local stylists called Mac & Milo’s.
Guiney and Haunted Burrow are also keeping a busy schedule. Stop in for a Sunday book club reading, a Thursday night “write in,” or a special “after hours” book club later in the month. There are also special showings from local creators of photography and art on the dark walls.
Find Haunted Burrow Books at 430 15th Ave E. Learn more at hauntedburrowbooks.com.
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