08/28/2026
In 1995 husband and wife, John Travis and Ellen Kurrelmeyer left New York and moved into their newly purchased house just off Route 30 in Whiting, Vermont.
A small section of the first floor served as Whiting’s Post Office and provided a little income. The rest of the space became “Bulwagga Books and Gallery” which sold a variety of local crafts, art, snacks, drinks and, of course, books.
It was a longtime dream of John’s to have a bookstore. He had worked for MacMillan publishing for many years in New York, and during this time John had amassed a collection of around 12,000 volumes, including a lot of scholarly nonfiction like philosophy and scientific treatises as well as everything from Medieval history to contemporary science fiction, children’s and foreign language.
Bulwagga became a favorite must-stop bookshop for book lovers. And because of it’s location along a well-traveled bike route, it was also a very popular spot for bikers to snack and perhaps buy the “found” volume. To help these unprepared bookers, Bulwagga posted “Forgot your reading glasses? Borrow a pair from us.” And they had a supply of glasses for those in need.
After many years fulfilling the larger dream, John and Ellen and their cat, Fred, decided to downsize. They closed Bulwagga in Whiting, sold the building and bought a house with an out-building in Middlebury, where they wanted to open a boutique bookstore version of Bulwagga.
Unfortunately, Ellen passed away, unexpectedly putting this plan on hold. Several years have since gone by and John recently concluded that “Bulwagga 2” was unlikely to happen. With this in mind, he contacted us and generously offered the bulk of his collection to Monroe Street Books.
As he explained, “I feel the books need to continue to circulate and they’re not doing that stacked next door. Those books still have a lot of life left in them.”
The staff of Monroe Street Books will slowly begin to integrate the Bulwagga inventory into our store stock on the shelves at the Route 7 location. It may take awhile (there are thousands of volumes) but in this way, Bulwagga Books lives on, finding their way to readers. And in a large part, John Travis does, too.
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