Chatsworth, N.J. ? She had driven past the dilapidated building dozens of times, and always she wondered: Wouldn’t it be great if someone would save it?

After all, it was once Buzby’s General Store, a 19th-century country business that served as feed store, grocery and candy shop for generations of folks before falling on hard times.

The years had not been kind: The paint was peeling, the floors were falling apart, the staircases were choked with bat dung. The two-story building would need more than a few cans of paint, certainly.

R. Marilyn Schmidt didn’t flinch. In what her friends dubbed her “moment of insanity,” she decided to do it herself.

Six years and $250,000 later, Buzby’s is back in business, with a new mission, a steady stream of customers and a newly won place on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places.

‘Pinelands resource center’

It’s not the Buzby’s that old pineys remember, but the name remains, Schmidt’s homage to the village gathering place the store was when Willis Jefferson Buzby, aka “the King of the Pineys,” and later his son operated it from 1897 through 1967.

Under the 75-year-old Schmidt, it’s a gift shop, bookstore and “Pinelands resource center” that celebrates the art, history and folkways of a vast swath of rural southern New Jersey known colloquially as the Pine Barrens.

So nicknamed by settlers who found its sandy soil difficult to farm, the 1.1 million-acre Pine Barrens — or Pinelands — region is known for its pristine wilderness, flourishing cranberry bogs and country sensibilities. The region stands in stark contrast to the strip malls, interstate highways and chemical plants for which the nation’s most densely populated state is more commonly known.

At Schmidt’s store, you can buy Pinelands reference books or Jersey Devil Hot Sauce, cranberries by the quart or stuffed animals, Pinelands watercolors or Buzby’s Cranberry Relish.

Stop in on a wintry day and Schmidt, a genial, soft-spoken woman with the demeanor of a well-educated schoolmarm, is apt to offer you a mug of hot spice cider.

Plucky renovation

“It’s a wonderful transformation,” said author Harold Boyd, 89, of nearby Tabernacle, who knew the old Buzby’s and loves the new one. “She’s a brave soul, and it’s a wonderful addition to Chatsworth.”

Schmidt is an unlikely savior.

Trained in science, she worked as a pharmacologist, biochemist and ghostwriter of medical journal articles. As an author, her titles include cookbooks, Pine Barrens guides and how-to books. She established Barnegat Light Press, a mail-order book outlet, to sell her books.

She spied the broken-down Buzby’s store on trips to Chatsworth from her home in Barnegat and decided in 1996 to give it a go.

It wasn’t easy: A day after she took title, a barn and outhouse on the property burned down. The rubbish and debris removed from the property occupied 33 large trash containers.

With carpenter Al Morison overseeing the renovation, Schmidt installed a wraparound mahogany deck and gutted the inside. Her plan was to lease the front room of the ground floor as a cafe and use the back room to sell her wares.

The cafe did poor business though, and closed in September 2002. Now, the entire store — and the apartment upstairs, where she lives by herself — belongs to Schmidt.

Built in 1865, the building was placed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places in February. The designation is largely symbolic, but Schmidt welcomed it nonetheless.

Old blends with new

“It almost certainly would have been demolished for neglect if Marilyn had not stepped in and done such a great job renovating the building and finding a productive use for it,” said Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

“It’s one of the very few places you can go in the Pinelands that is about the Pinelands, other than the state forest. And that’s a really good thing.”

Schmidt’s personality is all over the place. The Pine Barrens map that adorns the wall behind the register was published by the lady herself when she discovered there wasn’t a good map to help visitors find their way around the Pines.

Next to the fabric-covered mason jar with the coin slot in it a sign reads: “Questions gladly answered for a donation to our fire department.”

There are touches of the old Buzby’s, too. The 4-foot tall, 12-foot long glass-topped counter that once displayed penny candy has been restored, now occupied by decoys, paper weights and other knickknacks.

“The kids who scarred the counter top with their coins are now in their 70s, but they love to come back and see how it is,” Schmidt said. “When people around here have out-of-town visitors, they bring them here. I think that says something.”

The store is profitable, but couldn’t compete if it sold what the old Buzby’s sold, she says.

“You can’t compete with Wal-Mart, so you have to find your niche. And I think that I’ve found one.”