Bibelot

Fred Hobson, author of "Mencken: A Life," will appear at Bibelot bookstore at 2 p.m. tomorrow to read, answer questions about Mencken and sign copies of his book."

The Village of Cross Keys has received a face-lift. The once leaky courtyard of the North Baltimore shopping complex has received a $3-million renovation. The abandoned Bibelot bookstore is about to become home to the posh Elizabeth Arden Red Door day spa and the chic ladies boutique April Cornell. Truffles & Tea, a gourmet tea and chocolate store, has also moved in. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage will soon become neighbors with Talbots. "We feel it's time for people to rediscover Cross Keys," general manager Michelle Schiffer said.

A going-out-of-business sale brings out the vulture in all of us, even if we happen to love the poor, moribund business in question. Case in point: the Bibelot bookstore at Woodholme. That Bibelot was perhaps my favorite bookstore in the city, the place I brought my daughter to romp on the padded steps in the children's area, the most reliable source of research material for my own fiction, the place I chose -- and which chose me -- for the very first reading and book signing of my debut novel.

Coming to Baltimore, mate, is one of Outback Steakhouse Inc.'s Australian-theme Outback restaurants, the company said yesterday. The Tampa-based collection of chain restaurants plans to open one of its few urban Outbacks in Canton's American Can Company building by late fall in the space once occupied by the Bibelot bookstore. Outback operates a Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar and a Roy's in the city in Inner Harbor East, through joint venture and franchise agreements. Outback will lease the last available space in the building - 6,300 square feet - developed and operated by Struever Bros.

The Bibelot bookstore chain, which has announced it will go out of business in the next few months, has canceled all upcoming in-store events and author appearances at its four stores. Last night's event at the Timonium store, featuring local mystery writer Tim Cockey, was the last scheduled event to take place, said Bibelot spokeswoman Carrie Miller. Other events planned for this week and beyond at the Timonium, Canton, Cross Keys and Woodholme stores, including tonight's appearance by authors John C. Ball and Jill Jonnes at Woodholme, will not take place, she said.

Bibelot is no longer content just to sell books; now it has to publish them, too.At the same time that the locally owned company has expanded from one store to three in the Baltimore area, it has announced the start-up of a book publishing arm, called Woodholme House.Editor Gregg A. Wilhelm, late of Cathedral Foundation Press, said yesterday that the company intends to publish books of a "regional nature" and also works by local authors. He hopes to publish four books a year, concentrating primarily in nonfiction works.

Book lovers, read this: Brian Weese, former president of Encore Books, has started a local book "superstore" company and expects to have three or four area stores by the end of 1996. The first opens in Pikesville next week.The chain's name is Bibelot, a French-derived word that is related to "bauble," is pronounced "BEE-buh-low" and means "small treasure."Mr. Weese was out of a job last year when drug-store chain Rite Aid Corp. sold its 93-store Encore division to Lauriat's Inc. His next career step: his own book chain, based in the region that has been his home since 1992.

The Johns Hopkins University has scrapped plans to open a Bibelot bookstore in renovated, university-owned apartments across from its Homewood campus because of strong objections from the operator of the on-campus bookstore.The university's decision has led Manekin Corp.to pull out of a deal to handle leasing of newly created retail space at Homewood Apartments in the 3000 block of N. Charles St.The Manekin company had intended to take over and manage the 18,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space in the first half of this year.

Donna's coffee is out; Starbucks is in. The pale wood and vibrant purples have been replaced by Barnes & Noble's trademark dark bookshelves. Two years after the popular Bibelot bookstore chain closed, the nation's largest bookseller has moved into the homegrown retailer's former flagship in Pikesville. Despite the differences with Bibelot, once a popular neighborhood institution, the new Barnes & Noble store occupying the vast space in the Festival at Woodholme expects to win over once-loyal customers.

Potential tenants for former Bibelot bookstores in the Baltimore area had until yesterday to submit bids on the bankrupt retailer's leases. An attorney for Bibelot would not comment last night on whether the bookseller's leasing specialist had received written bids for leases on five former Bibelot bookstores in Timonium, Pikesville, Cross Keys, Canton and Bel Air. The lease offering also included the corporate offices of Baltimore-based Bloomsbury Group,...

Donna's coffee is out; Starbucks is in. The pale wood and vibrant purples have been replaced by Barnes & Noble's trademark dark bookshelves. Two years after the popular Bibelot bookstore chain closed, the nation's largest bookseller has moved into the homegrown retailer's former flagship in Pikesville. Despite the differences with Bibelot, once a popular neighborhood institution, the new Barnes & Noble store occupying the vast space in the Festival at Woodholme expects to win over once-loyal customers.

Brian D. and Elizabeth G. Weese, former owners of the now-defunct, Baltimore-area Bibelot bookstore chain, have reached a $13 million settlement with creditors who had accused the couple of fraudulently transferring nearly $20 million to an offshore trust fund. The settlement puts an end to several lawsuits against the couple in which creditors were seeking to recover at least $17.5 million owed after the once-popular bookseller filed for bankruptcy in March 2001. Bank of America NA, the Weeses' largest creditor, gets $10 million of its more than $15 million claim, the trustee overseeing couple's personal bankruptcy case said yesterday.

A deal to settle millions of dollars in lawsuits against Brian D. and Elizabeth G. Weese, who owned the defunct Bibelot bookstore chain, has unraveled, forcing a trial in the couple's personal bankruptcy case to go forward. But because the Weeses and two of their biggest creditors had expected to complete the $12.7 million settlement, the trustee overseeing the personal bankruptcy case said he is not ready for trial and plans to ask for a postponement. The trial, which is still on the calendar to start Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore, was scheduled after trustee Irving E. Walker filed a lawsuit in June last year asking the court to order millions of dollars of the Weeses' assets returned to the United States from an offshore trust in the Cook Islands.

Barnes & Noble Inc. plans to open a bookstore in Pikesville at the site of a former Bibelot, a defunct Baltimore bookseller. The new 24,500-square-foot Barnes & Noble Booksellers will be the first permanent book retailer to move into one of four former Bibelot stores in the Baltimore area, all of which shut down after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in March last year. Greenebaum & Rose Associates, the developers of Woodholme Center, where the store will open, will announce details Tuesday, said a spokesman John Stanton.

The Village of Cross Keys in North Baltimore has attracted three stores - including two national women's apparel chains - to plug vacancies at the shopping center owned by Rouse Co. Rouse's recruitment of the national chains Chico's and J. Jill is part of a strategy it embarked on after some local businesses moved or failed last year, including the Bibelot book chain. The third new tenant will be a locally owned art gallery. In addition to Chico's and J. Jill, the Cross Keys center has two other national retailers, a Talbots women's clothing store, and a Williams-Sonoma upscale kitchen ware store.

The trustee overseeing the personal bankruptcy case of the defunct Bibelot bookstore chain's owners has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore to order millions of dollars in assets returned to the United States from an offshore trust in the Cook Islands. In his first major move since being named trustee April 10, attorney Irving E. Walker asked the court to declare assets that Brian D. and Elizabeth G. Weese moved to an offshore trust part of the bankruptcy estate and order several people connected with the trust to return its assets.

Bibelot, the homegrown bookstore chain that became a neighborhood hangout and forum for local authors, is shutting its doors nearly six years after it emerged on a retail scene dominated by bigger, national stores. The Baltimore area's largest independent book and music seller filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday in Baltimore. It plans to close its four stores and lay off an estimated 100 employees within three months. "It's a real loss for the independent book-selling world," said Avin Mark Domnitz, chief executive officer of the American Booksellers Association in Tarrytown, N.Y. Bibelot, known for showcasing Maryland authors and luring shoppers with entertainment, comfortable lounges and Donna's restaurants, had expanded even as dominant chains Barnes & Noble and Borders Group Inc. forced hundreds of independent chains out of business.

Residents of Baltimore's Canton neighborhood might one day be able to browse through a local branch of the Bibelot book and music superstore chain and sip cappuccino at a Donna's Coffee Bar.This is the sort of upscale retailer that local developers want to bring to a $10 million shopping and office complex that would take shape on the old American Can Co. property in Canton.Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc. of Baltimore has an option to buy a triangular property bounded by Boston and Hudson streets and Lakewood Avenue from the American National Can Co. of Chicago.

A trial that was to begin Monday in a lawsuit charging that the owners of the defunct Bibelot book chain defrauded Bank of America has been postponed indefinitely as the bank pursues an overseas lawsuit against them. The discovery period in the suit, filed by the bank in Baltimore County Circuit Court against Brian D. and Elizabeth G. Weese, was extended until Dec. 31, but a trial date was not rescheduled, according to a court filing. Discovery is the phase in which parties exchange documents and information, and conduct depositions in preparation for trial.

WHEN the owners of the Bibelot book chain absolutely, positively had to shield $17 million from the Bank of America and the U.S. legal system, they didn't mess around with Bermuda, the Bahamas or Liechtenstein. They sent the money straight to the Cook Islands, the tightest ship in the "asset protection" business. A gorgeous, palmy archipelago in the boundless blue between Australia and Chile, the Cook Islands cooked up a new set of incorporation and trust laws in the 1980s with the help of a Denver lawyer.