Nestled in a village of unique restaurants and shops on Cottage Grove’s quaint historic main street sits a new bookstore with a modern aesthetic and an old soul. Cottage Groove Books and Music opened in early January 2025 in the space that was formerly Kalapuya Books. 

Walking into the bookstore, you are greeted with the smell of books, new, used and vintage. The wooden walls are adorned with book shelves, punk records and eclectic toys and dolls — for sale and decoration. With sunlight spilling in through the high windows above the staircase, the bookstore is small enough to be warm and cozy, but big enough to get lost for a while. With a free couple of hours, one can explore the entire store and come out with more than a few vinyls and books and various other finds. 

Lisa Ingold, a physician’s assistant out of Eugene, had always wanted to open a small business. 

“I’ve always supported local businesses, and I want to put things that I love into people’s hands that I love,” she says. When she and her husband Greg Ingold moved to Cottage Grove after living in Eugene for 25 years, she was ecstatic to learn that Kalapuya Books was up for sale. “I had to just beg my husband,” Lisa says. “He’s so much more practical than I am.”

“It didn’t come as a shock to me,” Greg says, when Lisa posed the idea of buying a bookstore when neither of them had any experience running their own business. “Because she has a tendency to come up with ideas that seem like they’re out of left field.” 

Greg was level-headed in acknowledging the risks that would come with buying a bookstore, but Lisa appreciated his rationality. “You need one practical person on the team because I’m such a dreamer,” she says. 

Despite the risk, they jumped in head first. Kalapuya Books was a Cottage Grove staple owned by Betsy Hartzell and her late husband Hal for about 30 years. When the Ingolds took over the space in Cottage Grove’s historic Burkholder Woods Building, all of the inventory came with it. Thousands of books were left behind, and about 80 percent are still sold in the store today. This includes a rich collection of local authors, local history books of Cottage Grove, Lane County and University of Oregon, and paperback local historic quarterlies dating back to the 1800s. These books, Lisa says, “are the backbone of the store.”

The Ingolds also gave the store a modern update. Where Kalapuya Books looked like an old library with ancient treasures wall-to-wall, the Ingolds cleared up some walking space, let some light in, grabbed furniture to create a cozy reading nook, and brought in current, bestsellers and young adult sections which they keep constantly updated. “We learned that a lot of teenagers and early 20-somethings were coming in to read books and look for vinyl, which I’m tickled pink about. We wanted to make sure there was something for them,” Greg says. 

And, significantly, they brought in the vinyl section. “We’re a musical family,” Lisa says. “Greg loves punk, I love alternative, one of our sons loves hip hop, and our other son is a drummer.” When it comes to their selection of used books and records, Lisa says “we’re very picky.”

They also made sure to bring in other little knick knacks aside from books, such as toys, puzzles and guitar strings, to meet the silly needs of the community. “There’s nowhere on Main Street to buy LEGOs or puzzles,” Lisa says. 

Getting the bookstore ready to open for business was no small feat. “One of my friends spent 40 hours alphabetizing the fiction section,” Lisa says, and there’s still much more work to be done. “I’m so grateful to my friends for helping us out.”

But when opening day arrived (which happened to align with two other main street businesses opening the same day), they were hit with 450 people. “It was so crazy, it was so busy, we weren’t expecting it.” Since then, as the Ingolds learn the ups and downs of running a business, it’s remained steady. 

“One of our biggest struggles has been letting people know that we’re here,” Lisa says. This has been accentuated with Cottage Grove’s Main Street undergoing a major renovation, in which half of the road is closed off. Though all the downtown businesses are still open, the removal of sidewalks has drastically affected foot traffic.

“Getting through the construction is probably our number one hurdle right now,” Greg says. “We knew going into this business that would be a thing, but once they removed the sidewalk, business just dropped right off a cliff.”

Yet they remain hopeful, particularly because the project aims to bring downtown Cottage Grove to life. “There’s so much potential for downtown,” Lisa says. “Cottage Grove is such a small town but it can support multiple bookstores. To me, that’s pretty impressive because it’s not a college town,” Greg says. Cottage Grove’s Main Street is home to two other bookstores, Bookmine and Goodbar Books.

The Ingolds’ outlook on Cottage Groove Books and Music’s future in the coming years is bright. “Assuming I’m still alive, climate change permitting,” Greg jokes, “if we’re still in business then I would find that a success.”

Lisa says she has one wish for business as the couple continues their journey, “I hope we love it!” 

Cottage Groove Books & Music is located at 637 East Main Street, Cottage Grove. It is open from 11 am to 5 pm Tuesdays through Saturdays and noon to 5 pm on Sundays. Closed Mondays. For more information visit CottageGroove.com.