A stretch of unused office space in Unionville has become one of Farmington's newest gathering spots: a secondhand bookstore and coffee shop tucked inside a 19th-century mill building along the river. The Next Chapters Bookhouse & Café opened to the public on September 3 at 218 River Road, and it's already catching regional attention for its Victorian-inspired reading nooks and a chessboard lounge where patrons can linger over a cup of coffee.
The shop is co-owned by Farmington residents Lana Van Valkenburgh and Paul Stepka, described as a lifelong book enthusiast and a coffee lover and local real estate professional, respectively, according to LIFEpublications. The pair built the business by repurposing roughly 1,800 square feet of underused office space in the mill building; their real estate brokerage, Vision Real Estate, is next door on the same floor. The venture got a fresh round of exposure this week when WFSB's WFSB featured the shop on its weekly 9a Cafe segment, highlighting hidden touches, a cozy reading experience, and even branded mugs available for purchase on site.
A Historic Mill Building Gets New Life
The café and booktique occupy the second floor of an 1887 post-and-beam mill structure situated along the Farmington River, next door to Riverfront Miniature Golf and Ice Cream, per the same LIFEpublications account. That riverside, exposed-wood setting shaped much of the interior design, which blends vintage furniture with warm amber lighting across multiple rooms. The main café area seats about 18 patrons, while a separate lounge built around a chessboard accommodates 10 more, with additional smaller reading nooks tucked throughout the space.
Getting to this point required a municipal green light. Farmington's Plan and Zoning Commission approved a change-of-use application allowing the office space to operate as a bookstore and café, clearing the way roughly three months before the September opening, according to The Farmington Mercury. That approval, granted in June, formally enabled the conversion of commercial office rooms into retail and food service use.
Secondhand Books, Local Authors, and Monthly Clubs
Inside, the inventory leans heavily on gently used books spanning romance, mystery, thriller, and children's titles, while reserving dedicated shelf space for new releases from Connecticut authors, as reported by The Connecticut Scoop. That mix of affordable secondhand stock and local author spotlights has become a hallmark of the shop's identity since its early September debut.
Beyond browsing and buying, The Next Chapters Bookhouse has built out its own community programming. The shop runs a monthly book club, Chapter Two, and sets aside pop-up vendor space for local craftspeople to sell their goods during business hours, according to its own description of the business. It's a model that also folds in regular author talks alongside the retail and café operations.
Part of a Bigger Bookstore Boom
The Unionville opening lands amid a broader national resurgence in independent bookselling. The American Booksellers Association reported that 605 bookstores opened across the United States in 2025, with planned new openings rising 21% as shoppers increasingly seek out physical gathering spaces and curated offline experiences, per data cited by SBDCNet. The Next Chapters Bookhouse & Café, with its blend of secondhand books, coffee, chess, and local vendor space, fits squarely into that trend of community-oriented retail taking root in historic small-town settings.
