Viewfinder: Madison Ice House

We visited the Madison Ice House on Boston Post Road to learn what we could about the tiny powder blue building near Hammonasset State Park that looks like a living post card from another era.  We found the icehouse attended by Clinton resident Jessica Lane who was reading a college text while soaking up some sun in her bathing suit during a lull in the business day.

She told us that she heard that building was built in 1922 but didn’t know much more about the history.  Lane also said she was working as many hours as she could while the Madsion Ice House was on its full seven day a week schedule that runs from mid June until Labor Day, in synch with the summer tourist season.

We saw owner Jeff Bailey briefly when he make a quick stop at the icehouse. He was busy with ice deliveries, didn’t have time to chat with us but he did offer one clue to the building’s past.

 After Bailey bought the building in 2002, he told us that he scraped the paint down to its original colors and found that it was “mustard yellow with black trim.”  He said that he considered repainting the icehouse in the original color scheme until his wife told him “No way.”

We asked Bailey if we could take his photo but he declined. Pointing to Jessica Lane, his bikini clad employee, he said “Take a picture of the pretty girl.”  And we did.

After we were unable to find anything of historical note about the building in town hall, we enlisted the help of Marcia Sokolnicki who was working on the reference desk at the Scranton Library. Although she could not find any specific historical reference to the Madison Ice House, she did lead us to a passage in the book “Madison: Three Hundred Years by the Sea” that cited the opening of Hammonasset State Park as business opportunity for Madison residents:

“The opening of the park in 1919 meant that rather than making a living from the land and waters, the residents could now make a living form those who came to visit the land and water.  A community changed its way of life. A lifelong resident of the area, Charlotte Dowd speaks of her brother converting chicken coops to tourist cabins.”

Much may have changed in the 92 years since Hammonasset State Park opened, but the tourists still come to Madison, they still need ice and they still visit the Madison Ice House.