Bodhi Tree Bookstore Searching for New Owners

A landmark West Hollywood bookstore will shut its doors this fall unless a new owner is found.

The , a 40-year-old New Age bookstore known worldwide, is going out of business. Store owners have sold the property; the deal will finalize in November. In the meantime, they’re looking for someone to buy the business and move the store to another location.

“We’re going to retire. We’ve been in this business since 1970. It’s time,” said co-owner Phil Thompson. “The world of books and bookstores has changed so dramatically in recent years, it’s been especially hard for an independent bookstore like Bodhi Tree.”

Although Thompson and co-owner Stan Madson are calling it quits, they want Bodhi Tree to continue. They announced the sale of the property more than a year ago, but have not yet found a buyer for Bodhi Tree’s large inventory, huge e-mail list and famous name.

“This is a wonderful store with a worldwide reputation,” Thompson said. “I hope someone with a good heart and a good financial background will buy it and move to a new location, one that has plenty of parking.”

Bodhi Tree is more than just a bookstore. It is a gathering place for those seeking answers, a place where people come to connect with other like-minded individuals, a place where spiritual journeys begin. 

The store’s name comes from the tree under which the young Buddha sat achieving enlightenment. And the store provides enlightenment in so many ways beyond just books. It holds classes and workshops, conducts author signings, hosts spiritual lecturers, brings in Zen masters and Buddhist teachers.

“Bodhi Tree has been the heart of the metaphysical community in L.A.,” said customer Jeremy Davis, making one of his regular stops at the store. “I hate to see it go. There’ll be a hole left in L.A. without it.”

Although every bookstore these days carries New Age/metaphysical/spiritual books, when Bodhi Tree opened the concept was revolutionary. The success of the store proved to publishers that there was a market for these types of books; thus, they helped create the New Age publishing genre.

As Thompson tells it, he and Madson had been working as aerospace engineers when all the changes of the 1960s began happening. “It was a time of anti-war, of civil rights, of sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” Thompson, now in his early 70s, recalled. “The Beatles started doing transcendental meditation and there was an onrush of Eastern ideas into the Western world.”

“People were hungry to learn more about these new ideas, but you couldn’t find the books. There was a place in Berkeley, but nothing in L.A. There were some head shops here that sometimes had a few books, but no large collection of books.”

So, on July 10, 1970, they opened Bodhi Tree, converting a two-bedroom bungalow on Melrose, then a quiet street primarily housing antique stores, into their shop with an initial inventory of 2,000 books. Business doubled almost yearly and by 1975, they were able to purchase the property and soon after buy two more houses that would become their meeting center and their used bookstore.

In the 1980s, during what Thompson calls the “Shirley MacLaine Years,” more than 1,800 people a day were coming into the store. The Oscar-winning actress (Terms of Endearment) penned several best-selling books about her metaphysical experiences and always credited Bodhi Tree as the place where her journey started. 

The shop had a large celebrity clientele. Tourists too flocked in as did spiritual seekers. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown was a regular, stopping by on a Saturday or Sunday to spend several hours reading and browsing. “We never bothered him, or any of the celebrities coming in,” Thompson said. “We just let them browse. Answered whatever questions they had.”

As chain stores that could offer deeper discounts expanded their New Age sections and online retailers such as Amazon began to take off, business started declining. But the biggest blow to Bodhi Tree was the parking problems. “When they started the permit parking in the surrounding neighborhoods, that hurt us,” Thompson said. “We got a valet and reimbursed people if they made a purchase, but the parking restrictions really did us in.”