Acanthus Press was founded in 1992 as an adjunct to a thriving architecture and design bookstore, Acanthus Books. The bookstore, founded in 1982, began strictly as an antiquarian venture. By the late 1980s, the store sold a mixture of old and new books, with many fine books imported from Europe. The client list was international, and it became one of the many hidden treasures of New York, located up off the street in a loft in Chelsea. Acanthus Books closed in 2000, as all energies were shifted to a growing Press.
