SOUTH FORK — Mountain Lighthouse and Boutique owner Glynn Polter is pleased to announce that the once small business will be celebrating 13 years in South fork. Polter moved to the South Fork area with her husband and now town Manager Dan Hicks in search of a place to vacation 17 years ago. It wasn’t but four years later that they made their second home their only home and moved to South Fork full-time.

“We were looking for a place to vacation and to build a second home and we wanted mountains. I think it was the gorgeous Rio Grande Club Golf Course and the Gold Medal waters that did it for us. We built our second home and that was it. We both had corporate jobs and when we decided to retire, we moved here full-time and that was when I opened the store,” said Polter.

Polter and Hicks both came out of retirement when they moved to South Fork fulltime, Hicks went to work for the town and Polter decided she wanted to keep working as well so she opened her Mountain Lighthouse.

“In 2007, 2008, I got into lighting and home décor, so I decided to open a shop,” Polter said. “Things were good for the first few years. People were building in the area and came to me with their lighting and home needs, but then things switched and those were some hard years.”

Polter stated that she was not about to let that stop her from keeping her business afloat.

“I knew that we could change and expand the business because women would still want to buy clothes and jewelry even though the housing market wasn’t doing so well, so I expanded and opened the boutique part of the shop,” she said.

In the years since, Polter has added to the building subleasing it to renters and consignment artists that sell everything from watercolor paintings to homemade jewelry.

“This past year hasn’t been horrible. It hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been horrible,” Polter said. “I have about 50 artists on consignment and the renters throughout the building, plus the housing market was slammed this year. People really wanted to get out and since they were working remotely in most cases, I think they came here.”

Polter said that she was pleased most of all with her return customers.

“I have several loyal customers both locally and from out of town. Even though we don’t have an online presence, which I did on purpose, we do complete a lot of shipping for clients,” Polter said. “We also started to offer staging for homes that are on the market whether they are rentals or homes for sale, and we do decorating as well for anyone wanting that service. It has worked out wonderfully so far and we have even had some customers purchase the decorations we put in homes, which is great.

“I am very thankful to my summer guests as well as my local customers. We celebrate every anniversary with a sale, and we will be doing that again this year. It will be sometime in June. We try to keep our inventory as unique as possible and if we don’t have it, we will help you find it,” she said.

The Mountain Lighthouse and Boutique is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located at 23 Buck St. in South Fork.