A Lego version of Burke's Book Store? How this 'ultimate nerd project' came together

Cheryl Mesler had a vision, and she brought it to life one Lego at a time.

It took at least 1,000 Lego pieces and more than a month of construction for Cheryl to create a miniature replica of her shop, Burke’s Book Store.

After about two steps through the front door of the Cooper-Young shop, customers get a view of the wooden checkout counter where Cheryl's masterpiece sits: a tan Lego-bricked model of the store with mini toy cars parked to the side and a bike placed out front.

Examining the sculpture more closely, one can view inside the busy shop full of bookshelves, cabinets, a ladder, typewriters, employees with coffees, phones and regular customers — all in Lego, of course.

"The ultimate nerd project," said Cheryl, 56, co-owner of the store at 936 Cooper St. "I'm very proud of it. Legos are just fun."

In a monthly book magazine, Cheryl saw a Lego replica of the Strand Book Store in New York City and decided to try her hand in creating her own business with the building blocks.

From the Lego website to eBay, Cheryl scoured the internet for months starting in July, looking for the perfect, tan-colored brick or navy blue bookshelf to accurately recreate Burke's Book Store. By the time the pieces came in, she found building the store "pretty easy."

"The more stressful part was trying to find the right pieces," she said, adding that transporting it from her Memphis home to the shop also shook her nerves a bit. "It came out better than I thought, to be honest, because I was ready at some point to give it up, like this is not going to work."

The model includes some of the store's small details including the window stickers on the outside, the parking lot, typewriters on each aisle, the tree in front of the building and a ladder in the back.

Inside the four plastic walls, Lego employees based on actual workers are scattered around doing their usual work. Cheryl can be found in the model holding a miniature camera taking a picture of a dog, something she does every time a dog walks in.

Her husband, co-owner Corey Mesler, stands in the doorway of their office, while their daughter Chloe Mesler — complete with her blue hair — is in the back of the shop helping a patron. A regular customer stands in front of the entrance with his hat on.

"I could go crazy and make this thing to scale but it's got to fit on the counter," Cheryl said. "I love doing this, Legos are just something fun for me."

Her obsession with Legos began as a child when she and her brother would play with them and create random figures. As she got older, Cheryl enjoyed putting pieces together and Corey would encourage her hobby. He bought her a White House Lego model and watched as she meticulously put it together.

Cheryl also would join her grandkids in building Lego models, with one even helping add "finishing touches" to the store's replica.

"When she started talking about it, I was like that's impossible," Corey said as he remembered when Cheryl first told him about building the store. "I'm used to her being incredibly creative, but with this I was like, 'OK, she's bitten off more than she can chew.'"

Months later, Corey, 67, watched his wife's vision come to fruition.

"It's incredible," he said. "One thing she can do that I can't do, because she's a visual artist, is envisioning it."

Cheryl hopes her next project will be the Lego typewriter model, but with the price at about $250 she's not sure when that will happen.

For now, Cheryl wants to cherish her Lego building. She said it will "live on" in its protective cage in the bookstore as long as the Meslers own it.

But no one is allowed to touch it, she said.

Dima Amro covers the suburbs for The Commercial Appeal and can be reached at Dima.Amro@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @AmroDima.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Burke's Book Store co-owner created Lego version of Memphis shop