What’s In Store: Simply Sacred Books and Gifts expands

Simply Sacred Books and Gifts has finished doubling the size of its religious items store and plans a grand reopening on Saturday at its store in the Safeway shopping plaza at Marlow and Guerneville roads in west Santa Rosa.

The business has been operated since 2007 by three generations of Michelle and Chad Davis’ family. The store sells mostly Catholic denomination items but welcomes all faiths and has a section for people recovering from alcohol and narcotics dependency.

In the new 18,000-square-foot store, shoppers will find expanded wedding, baptism, Communion, children’s and greeting card sections. A larger Irish section includes Celtic prayer books, shamrocks and plaques with Irish blessings.

Michelle Davis, 42, was on maternity leave from her job as a labor and delivery nurse at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital when she first entertained the idea of opening a religious bookstore.

After the couple’s youngest child entered kindergarten, she unsuccessfully sought work in hospice nursing. When Interfaith Books in Santa Rosa closed, her mother, Mary Petersen, suggested she open a religious bookstore instead.

“We prayed about it, and I signed a lease,” Davis said. “Then the hospice called. They had misplaced my phone number.”

She stuck to her plan and opened the store in September 2007. “This is my full-time commitment,” she said. “It has been a wonderful family thing. I enjoy owning my own business and have met wonderful people in the community.”

Her husband, Chad, also 42, is a Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital emergency room nurse and a nurse at the medical center at Sonoma Raceway during the summer racing season. He and Peterson also contribute to the business, as do the couple’s three children, ages 22,17 and 12.

The opportunity to expand arose when the owner of an adjacent clothes cleaning business decided not to renew his lease. “It was a blessing we didn’t know,” Davis said.Expanding Simply Sacred Books and Gifts from 840 square feet to 18,000 square feet allowed them to install a second door and change the floor plan to better accommodate shoppers in wheelchairs and those who use walkers, Davis said.

“We spent the Thanksgiving Day weekend doing the floor while we were still open,” she said. The renovations were finished on Dec. 1.

The business gets its inventory from manufacturers in the U.S., Italy and South America.

“We also go to Christian trade shows and buy art and music from local artists,” Davis said.

The expansion allowed the store to double its inventory of Bibles in English and Spanish, and to display year-round the religious items for typically “seasonal” sacraments and occasions, particularly First Communions that occur in April and May.

Crosses and other jewelry are popular items. The store also stocks a large selection of candles, statues, music CDs, paintings, rosary beads and laminated holy cards of the saints.

Simply Sacred Books and Gifts at 1791 Marlow Road is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The store is closed Sundays. More info: 528-7749, simplysacredbooksandgifts.net.

The grand reopening is ?10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, March 7. Bay Area authors Father Jim Sullivan, a priest in the Diocese of Oakland, and Brian O’Neel, communications director of the Santa Rosa Diocese and editor of North Coast Catholic, will autograph their books. Contact Windsor Towns Correspondent James Lanaras at WindsorTownNews@gmail.com