Ex libris.

 While we were in the mountains, Steven and I did some serious thrifting. We found the most amazing book collection that looked like it had been pulled from some old library (notice the handwritten numbered labels on the spines). We were immediately drawn to the titles and the fonts and the colors.

 Each book has its own unique details. I am more than a little bit obsessed.

It turns out that we stumbled upon the old library of the Hotel Wyoming in Orlando, Florida. Because I am a tremendous nerd, I did some online research (i.e., "Googling").

Hotel Wyoming started as the private home of some dude (j/k, his name was Nathaniel Poyntz) in 1870. It was turned into a 15-room hotel in 1900. The hotel was expanded five total times, going from 15 rooms to over 100. The height of its popularity as a leading tourist hotel was in the 1920s, until it was torn down in 1959. (Image from Wikipedia.)

 This it it, post-expansions, in 1948, 11 years before it was torn down. (Image from vintagepostcards.org.)

All that really remains of this hotel are old postcards and apparently a collection of books from its library that sit in a Habitat ReStore in the mountains of North Carolina.

These books transport me. People read these books on vacation in Florida, before the tourist traps, and Disney World, and Universal Studios, and strip malls. I imagine some rebellious teenaged girl reading the copy of Grey Wethers, written Vita Sackville-West (Virginia Woolfe's lover, gasp!), tucked in the library away from her family.

I wish we'd bought the entire collection. For a dollar each, we've brought home all sorts of things for me to daydream about for ages.