Customers Are Our History

Dedicated to the customers who became our best friends

For seven generations, one family has called this stretch of coast home. Nearly two hundred years ago the sea brought the first of them ashore here, and they stayed. They're farmers still: corn and soybeans. Along the Atlantic Flyway they manage one of the largest waterfowl sanctuaries on the East Coast, where snow geese and swans return every winter. For twenty years they also lovingly cared for a small band of wild horses on the island beside their farm, and they still support the wild horses that share these dunes.

In the sixties they turned an old building into a country store, and as the beaches grew, so did their shops, up and down the coast. In the shadow of an old lighthouse, they run a gift shop they've cared for like home. To me, their shops are some of the nicest anywhere on the East Coast. Then a new generation planted grapes on the old dunes, and the farm became a place for tastings, music on the lawn, hayrides through the vines, a boat ride across the sound, and on summer days a hang glider drifting over it all.

In October 2019 fire took the original store. Nobody was hurt, and this family did what it has always done: they kept their doors open by the beach, cleared the ground with their own hands, and, with a whole community behind them, set out to rise from the ashes. We were there for that chapter, just as we were for the good years before it and all the good years since. That's what this kind of relationship is. You don't just serve a customer's business. You get to live their life with them, through the hard times and the good. And it isn't only this family. Most of our customers live and work up and down the East Coast, where hurricanes are part of life. Time and again, we've stood by them and supported their businesses until they were back on their feet.

For almost forty years I've shared some of the best times of my life with this family. He is the best friend I have ever had, and everyone on my team who has worked with them has treasured it. Business isn't always about money. Our customers are not just accounts. Customers are our history. More than customers, they are our friends.

Our customers leave legacies. We are their caretakers.

— Kevin

Music: Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46, “Morning Mood.” Musopen Symphony (Czech National Symphony Orchestra), Musopen Kickstarter Project, 2012. Public domain. Recording source. Stills are AI-generated and depict no real, identifiable people, stores, signs, or businesses.