City Bay / Hero's Welcome

City Bay / Hero's Welcome

North Hero, Vermont 05474

Official Website

About this Location

Hero’s Welcome is located at City Bay on North Hero Island in the middle of Lake Champlain. The century-old building was originally built by John Tudhope in 1899. Here it is in the early 1920s. The Tudhope family ran the Store for ninety years. That’s John himself standing out on the porch.

Later, hard times fell upon the place and it closed. The town of North Hero wasn’t the same without that store…it had been the honored gossip spot for so long, the town rumor mill suffered!

Bob and Beverly Camp bought the property in 1993, restored the structures, and re-named it Hero’s Welcome. They injected decades of retail experience and more than a little elbow grease to recreate the store in its current form. There are three buildings, resting cheek-by-jowl at the water’s edge. If you pay us a visit in the summer season, you’ll find thousands of items…and customers from one end to the other! It is an exciting place, even for the residents.

They also roll out a big summer dock less than a hundred feet from the store and welcome lake travelers from all points of the compass. You can get here by car, bike, horse, ferry, seaplane, kayak, canoe, water skis, and even ice skates!

They welcome thousands of folks every year, and in our busiest summer months, might see over 2000 visitors in a single day. It’s not uncommon to step outside the building and wonder at the collection of bicycles, ski boats, Harleys, seaplanes, SeaDoos, cars, and trucks that have piled up around the store.

Features

  • Roadside viewing

  • Restrooms on site

  • Wheelchair accessible trail

  • Entrance fee

Content from Official Website

Last updated August 24, 2023