The Last Bookstore turns a dead LA bank into an Instagram-famous book labyrinth

Josh Spencer, a Kentucky native, spent years selling used books and other goods on eBay from his downtown L.A. loft. In 2009 he bowed to local pressure and opened a small experimental shop, and in 2011 — at a moment when five big bookstores were closing in Los Angeles — he was offered the ground floor of the 99-year-old Crocker Citizens Bank building at Fifth and Spring. He had never thought of himself as a bookstore owner: he simply imagined what a cool 'last bookstore' would look like for some future civilization.

Spencer's answer was to build the store itself as the product. With 25-foot ceilings, massive columns and real bank vaults as a stage, he added curved tunnels of books, portholes, a mural made from paperbacks, sculptures of books flying off shelves, and an upstairs labyrinth of dollar books. The design language drew on Indiana Jones and fantasy films, and the result was a space that looked like a neo-Victorian sci-fi novel rather than a failing retail category.

The bet worked because the room became the reason to come. The store climbed onto must-see lists, its book tunnel and cutout book hole became Instagram-famous, television and movies such as 'Gone Girl' shot there, and by 2016 it spanned about 21,500 square feet with more than 250,000 titles — one of the largest independent bookstores anywhere. Spencer later expanded to Lost Books in Montrose, Skull-Face Books in Honolulu, and a fourth store in Studio City, telling the L.A. Times: 'I like creating a space, an experience.'