The building (Thompson House) at 875 Port Clyde Road, that houses my family’s businesses, Village Ice Cream, Port Clyde Bakery and The Little Dipper (gift shop/art gallery/toy store) has over a century’s worth of history to be told.....and here is where we begin.
Built in the late 1800s by Franklin Trussell, who also owned the Port Clyde General Store and a home that is now the Seaside Inn, this building was used originally as office space. Later made into apartments as well as the Port Clyde Post Office, with long time post mistress Enid Monaghan presiding for several decades. Each apartment had it’s own two-holer located to the left of the building (recently renovated into a shed, using the original design). During the late 1970s and early 1980s, after standing vacant for several years, my parents opened an antique shop, Village Outlet. With their own aging parents and a fifth child on the way, this became too much to balance. The building sat vacant again, with the exception of the occasional tenant in the apartment above, until in 1987, my sister Marie and her business partner Janet, decided to embark on an endeavor they didn’t envision would turn into what it is today.