Here is a look at the Ripton Country Store located in Vermont.
 |
| Way Up There |
 |
| Photo by Tom Russell |
The Ripton Country Store was brought to my attention courtesy of my buddy Tom Russell. He and his wife Karen were vacationing nearby the store recently and sent me the following:
Karen and I just returned from a trip to Vermont. We stayed in a place called Robert Frost Mountain
Cabins. It was quite the adventure. After the end of the asphalt it was 3.4 miles of
gravel road to get to the cabins. We turned at the Ripton Country Store to get to our
cabin. The store allegedly goes way back. The real story is the ICE machine. The old
machine misspelled ice as IEC. The new owners, 2018 I think, replaced the ancient IEC
machine. The new machine spelled ice correctly. There was so much outcry, the new owners
had the new machine changed back to IEC lettering....
Here then is another photo Tom took showing the ice box:
 |
| Now tell the truth – did you catch that when you looked at Tom’s first photo of the store? |
As Tom mentioned, there is of course a story behind the Ice misspelling. Found this article from a cycling publication where then owner Dick Collitt tells how the ICE became the IEC (click here.)
Dick and his wife Sue operated the store for 40+ years before putting it on the on the market in 2018. This became the subject of a NY Times article and the following NBC news story:
A Virginia couple learned about the store being for sale and put in a bid on the property only to learn that they were too late. Turns out that after the NY Times article was published, it generated 70 inquiries from folks around the country who were interested in buying the store. (Here is the link to that article but it is subject to the NY Times paywall (click here.)
However, the initial offer for the store fell through and the Collitts then sold it to new owners Eva Hoffmann and Gary WieselI. Here is a nice article on the store’s transitioning from the Collitts to Eva and Gary (click here.) Gary was originally from the area but had left to join the Navy and ultimately retire in Norfolk. He was therefore coming back home when he and Eva bought the store. Who says……