READ THE FINE PRINT

Nestled among the winding, narrow streets of Berkeley, California, which curve past a pastiche of architectural styles, including the material opulence of the spare modern mansions belonging to the tech elite, Susan Filter and Peter Koch's home stands apart.

- BY RACHEL LEHMANN-HAUPT

Their apartment, one of three in a converted Mediterranean Revival boardinghouse built in 1909, is hidden away down a footpath in a neighborhood that architecturally mirrors the eclectic spirit of Berkeley. In the city where the Free Speech Movement took root, a vibrant intellectual and bohemian culture endures, thanks in part to couples like Filter and Koch, as well as to the authors Michael Chabon and Michael Pollan, the chef Alice Waters, and the economist Robert Reich, who live nearby. Koch, 81, is a revered master printer, book artist, and typographer; Filter, 72, is a paper conservator who has dedicated her life to repairing books and maps after spending many years studying art in Italy.

Together they have amassed a vast, Borgesian collection of 7,000 first editions, out-of-print titles, arcane maps, and literary ephemera, all meticulously looked after and each one the keeper of a story from Filter's and Koch's long history in the publishing trenches.

“Books carry more than just words,” Koch says. “They hold history, memory, and the soul of the people who made them.” This sentiment resonates deeply with me, because of my own heritage, which I describe for him. My grandfather Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, a rare books expert, played a pivotal role in the World War II-era Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (famously known as the “Monuments Men”), which preserved countless pieces of cultural patrimony that had been looted by the Nazis. Many of my grandfather's books, it turns out, are in the couple's collection.