Meet the Storekeeper: Q&A with Lyman Orton
Catching up with the patriarch of The Vermont Country Store as it celebrates 75 years as “purveyors of the practical and hard-to-find.”
By Jenn Johnson|Aug 09 2021|
Lyman Orton, proprietor of The Vermont Country Store
Credit: Corey HendricksonWhen Vrest Orton first fulfilled his dream of opening an old-fashioned country store in Weston, Vermont, in 1946 — a store that looked very much like the one his own father and grandfather had operated in North Calais, Vermont a few decades earlier — he likely couldn’t have imagined that it would become an iconic New England retailer whose catalogs would eventually be found in millions of homes. But in the hands of Vrest’s son Lyman, and later, his sons, The Vermont Country Store has reached its 75th anniversary year as more than a business success story: It has also been a driving force in building and supporting community in Vermont and, through the work of Community Heart & Soul, across the country.
Yankee recently caught up with Lyman Orton at The Vermont Country Store’s headquarters for a story in the September/October issue [“Up Close”]. Here’s a bit more of what we talked about with this native Vermonter, businessman, and philanthropist (and proud grandfather), who calls himself a storekeeper at heart.
Lyman Orton, proprietor of The Vermont Country Store
Credit: Corey HendricksonCredit: Corey Hendrickson Your parents, Vrest and Mildred Orton, opened The Vermont Country Store before you were even in first grade. What’s a favorite memory of working in the store when you were a youngster? Waiting on customers and adding up their purchases. This was before the sales tax, of course! I used chalk and a school slate, which the store also used to sell back then — “the Silent Slate,” it was called, because it had red felt around the outside to keep it from rubbing against things. So as a kid, I got very good at adding, and since sometimes people would look at me with a little disbelief, I’d say, “Oh here, you can check it out,” and turn the slate around and let them see for themselves. Was there ever a question about whether you’d go into the family business? Not at all. When I graduated from Middlebury College in ’63, my roommate went into the Peace Corps and I put my apron on and went back to work. One of my first jobs was to order things and control the inventory, and I started doing copywriting for the catalog, too. That was important, because I was always asking myself what the “headline” was, what the unique selling benefit of this thing was. If you can’t come up with a unique selling benefit, forget it — you don’t have a product!
The Vermont Country Store in Weston, Vermont.
Credit: Corey HendricksonCredit: Corey Hendrickson You succeeded your dad as head of the company back in the 1970s. Tell us a little about that era. In 1973 there was the oil embargo, and overnight the world changed. Gas went up, there were lines at gas stations, and nobody was driving. And just within days, our catalog orders jumped up 30 percent! And that’s when I went, hmm, we’re really on to something here. It demonstrated the potential of mail-order. And that’s when I decided it’s a heck of a lot better to expand the mail-order side than to just build lots and lots of stores. We’ve got the two stores in Vermont, the original one in Weston and the Rockingham one. But to open a Vermont Country Store in New Hampshire? On the coast of Maine? Or a mall? No way. I never thought that made any sense. But we did start building up the mail-order at that time. My guide to growth was to only grow as fast as we could get the packages out the door. Otherwise, we would tick off a lot of customers. What are some of the more unusual products you’ve found for The Vermont Country Store catalog? It’s funny, when I would go to trade shows, the tables would be draped with cloth and I’d always ask, “Well, what do you have under the table?” Because I’d learned that’s where you could find the stuff that wasn’t new, maybe, but it was still amazing. That’s what we were always chasing: not the newest thing, but the things people remembered and were still great. Here’s a good example. Remember when digital watches came out? I think Bill Clinton made them popular. Right around that era. Well, I called up Timex in Connecticut and said, “Do you have any of the original Timex watches left?” I was thinking of the ones from those ads in the ’50s where they did all these crazy stunts to the watches — “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” So we got the original watches and put them in the catalog, and one day the president of Timex calls up and says, “My people tell me you’re selling more of these watches than anybody in America. You’re a country store. What are you doing with them?” I said, “Well, we’re selling them and, um, please keep making them! Because there are a lot of people out there who still want them.” Another one was rehabbed Electrolux vacuum cleaners from the 1950s. We sold enormous numbers of them before the supplier finally ran out, and we were begging him to please find some more. You just never know what’s going to sell.
Interior of The Vermont Country Store in Weston, Vermont.
Credit: Corey HendricksonCredit: Corey Hendrickson What are some popular items that The Vermont Country Store sells today? Everybody wants to know, “What’s your best-seller?” And I say, “Well, if I tell you I’ll have to kill you.” [Laughs.] Probably the top nostalgic reminder that people have is scent. It’s a powerful thing. So we have Evening in Paris perfume, which used to be a dime store perfume, the sort of thing that a father might take his son to buy for a Mother’s Day gift and so on. There are people who come into the store and see it and say “I remember my mom wearing that” or “Oh my God, I wore that on my wedding day.” Homespun tablecloths, we’ve carried forever and ever. Oilcloth ones too. Percale sheets, flannel sheets. Nightgowns. Hundred-percent cotton duck shower curtains. We do a lot with seersucker in our sub-brand line of men’s clothes, Orton Brothers — it’s just a timeless fabric that you can wear all day, and if it wrinkles you don’t really even notice. A lot of these we’ve had for years and years — but if a product sells, I don’t want to replace it. We’re not a fashion business. We always ask ourselves what is most convenient to the customers rather than what is most convenient to us.
Gardner, Cabot, Eliot, and Lyman Orton
Credit: Courtesy of The Vermont Country Store
great article, even went to the web and finished it. never knew what a large family operated store it was. will ad it to my stock of on line suppliers!????
Been using your catalog for years
My favorite is to be able to find ” Shalimar”
Was so happy, since efforts to find it,again was impossible. Thank you
I would like mail delivery of your catalogue 71 Garfield ln west Dennis ma 02670
Reading “Cooking with Wholegrains” by Ellen and Vrest Orton, copyright 1951. Wondering if the stone mill that they had still exists?