Annette Root went from being a social worker in Vancouver, Wash., to running one of the most popular businesses on the North Olympic Peninsula, but she says the jobs aren’t really all that different.
“It’s all about connecting with people,” she said. “Social work gave me that.”
Root, 47, is the owner of a business that is becoming a dynasty, Dazzled by Twilight, devoted to all things vampire.
Based on the wildly popular Twilight series of books by author Stephenie Meyer and movies based on those books about vampiric youth living in the West End of Clallam County, the stores in Forks and Port Angeles are part business, part shrine, to which customers come from all over the world.
She and her husband, Timothy, also run Twilight Tours and The Twilight Lounge, and have opened a restaurant downstairs from the lounge called The Lodge in Forks, all on North Forks Avenue.
For Root, it’s more than a business — it’s safe to say it’s an obsession.
She shares a birthday with Bella, the human heroine who falls for the pale and sexy vampire, Edward, and had a small shrine devoted to Twilight in her home.
Root said she has read the four-book Twilight series “about 22 times,” but it took some convincing to get her to read them.
Forks was included in the regions Root supervised, and when a worker there told her about the books, she rolled her eyes.
“I said, ‘I don’t have time to read about some stupid teenagers in Forks,'” she recalled, sitting in her office surrounded by Twilight paraphernalia.
But while searching online for something to read, she finally succumbed and ordered the first three books.
“I read all three of them in one weekend,” she said. And, like millions of other devoted “Twi-hards,” she was hooked.
“There’s something about her [Meyer’s] character development that amazes me,” she said. “They became very real to me; they felt like friends.”
And like good friends, if she didn’t hear from them for awhile she missed them.
“When I hadn’t read the books in a while I felt lonely,” she said.
She made her mother-in-law, sister and niece read them, and they were hooked, too.
On a date Root remembers well –Sept. 7, 2008, the trio “kidnapped” Root and took her to the heart of Cullen country, Forks.
Self-described “huge Disney fans,” they found almost no reference to Twilight, Edward or Bella in the small, remote logging town even though the first book had come out three years earlier.
“It was just so sad, to go so far and be let down,” she said.
They found the Forks Chamber of Commerce office closed, but director Marsha Bingham opened the door for them and showed them letters the chamber had been getting from Twilight fans around the world, asking for information about Forks.
“I got excited about all those people sending letters to Forks,” she said.
With a busy career, three children and a husband, starting a business in Forks was not tops on her to-do list, but the seed was planted.
Six weeks later, in October 2008, she opened the doors on the first Dazzled by Twilight store. The store was short on merchandise but long on ambition.
“This is about having a true passion for something,” she said. “It’s why people come here — I guess that’s why we’re all here.”
She had planned on running the store during the week and going home to her family on weekends, but almost from the start, business boomed and she knew she couldn’t commute for long.
By summer, the lines were out the door of the small space, and she began looking for a larger store.
She found one just a few doors down, a former flower and gift shop with an apartment on the second floor.
Root and the couple’s children, now numbering five, moved into the apartment over the store last summer, while her husband stayed in Vancouver, where he is a chief financial officer for a major chemical plant. He comes to Forks on weekends.
“I put everything I had into building the store I dreamed of,” she said.
The store opened in the fall 2009, and is designed to delight Twi-hards young and old, with Astroturf carpeting, large molded trees with sparkling lights entwined in the branches and every kind of Twilight souvenir imaginable. All of the images are from the movies, but many items also relate to the books.
“My sister said I’d finally done it — created ‘Twisneyland,'” she said.
The Roots are also diehard Disney fans — Annette and Timothy honeymooned there, and the family has visited the amusement park more than two dozen times.
Root’s children range in age from 8 years to 23 months: Chandler, Connor, Cooper, Chase and Cameron. She said the older ones have read the books and enjoy them.
“Some of it just goes over their heads, which is fine,” she said. “They think it’s cool that Mom works in a forest.”
While Root works up to 18 hour days managing the Twilight business, the children are looked after by a local teenager, whom Root said is like part of the family.
“The kids love the outdoors,” she said. “They’ve met some wonderful people here.”
Root loves working with kindred spirits, who share her passion for Twilight.
“One of the rewards is the opportunity to interact with an amazing variety of people from all over the world who love the same thing I do,” she said. “I want everyone who walks through the door to have a wonderful experience.”
She opened the restaurant to meet a need.
“In Forks, everything closes by 8,” she said.
But she would keep her store open late in order to meet customer demand. The thought of them going hungry went against her Italian heritage.
“It seemed rude to invite people in and not offer them something to eat,” she said. “I believed there was a need for a nice, clean restaurant that was open after 8.”
With the restaurant, the army of Dazzled by Twilight employees grew to more than 50.
Root has one requirement of future employees: they must be Twilight-friendly.
“My employees must have read or plan to read the series,” she said. “It’s OK if they don’t get into it, but they have to be knowledgeable. This is a Twilight company.”
Root doesn’t know how long the Twilight phenomenon will last or how long the fans will keep making the pilgrimage to Forks.
“There will always be people who love it. There are always going to be readers, but I don’t know if they will continue to trek to Forks.”
One thing she is sure of: “I will do this as long as it makes me happy,” she said.