Shore Marketplace

by Lily Burbage

Shore Marketplace Keeps a Family Legacy and Local Makers Thriving in Lewes

For more than six decades, the building that now houses Shore Marketplace has been part of a family business in Lewes.

Long before the shelves held handmade goods, coastal décor, and gifts from more than 40 vendors, the property was home to Shore Building Supply, a lumberyard Marlene and Esther Ingram’s father started in the late 1950s. Today, his daughters continue that legacy in a different form, creating a marketplace that has become a gathering place for local makers, shoppers, and families.

“We both basically grew up in the retail business,” Marlene Ingram Lusk said.

The sisters’ connection to the property goes back even further. Marlene remembers coming to the lumberyard as a child, sitting at the counter and helping write tickets. Their parents later expanded into other ventures, including a Heritage Antique Market.

After graduating college with a degree in interior design, Marlene helped her father open an unfinished furniture store in the building, which eventually evolved into finished furniture and home décor. Esther Ann Ingram returned home from Florida and opened a scrub shop in another part of the property.

After their father passed away and their brother was ready to retire, the sisters decided to transform the space once used for furniture finishing into something new.

A family member suggested turning the space into a marketplace, and the sisters wondered whether anyone would want to be a vendor. They posted the idea on Facebook.

By the next morning, 65 people had expressed interest.

“That’s when we thought, okay, we think this will work,” they recalled.

They began dividing the space into booths and wall spaces, renovating the building and bringing in vendors. But just as the front half filled, COVID-19 arrived.

Instead of abandoning the concept, the family found a way to keep the marketplace and its vendors moving.

With the store closed, they began posting merchandise on Facebook. Customers could message about pieces they wanted, pay online, and pick up their purchases at the warehouse door.

For about two months, Shore Marketplace operated as a drive-up retail business.

Today, the marketplace has more than 40 vendors and maintains a waiting list for people hoping to join.

Shore Marketplace owners, Marlene Ingram Lusk (left) and Esther Ann Ingram.

But Shore Marketplace is about more than filling a building with merchandise. For the sisters, it’s about giving people an opportunity that can be hard to find in a high-cost area like Coastal Delaware.

Many vendors are local artisans and makers who aren’t ready, or able, to open a traditional brick-and-mortar store of their own.

“Real estate is very expensive here,” Marlene said. “This gives a lot of people just starting out an opportunity to make things and own a business that they might not have had before.”

The marketplace also creates something equally important: community among the vendors themselves.


Vendors take turns working the counter, meeting customers, and spending time with one another. They promote each other’s new products, share photos, and celebrate each other’s successes.

“Most of our vendors are almost like our family,” Esther said.

That sense of family extends beyond the vendors. The business is now preparing to welcome its third generation: Marlene’s daughter, who grew up in the store and recently moved home, will be joining the business his fall.

She was eight weeks old when she first started coming to the property. Now she brings her own baby.

The moment has created a full-circle connection between generations, mirroring the relationships that have developed throughout the marketplace.

One vendor is a longtime friend the family has known since high school; another remembers holding Marlene’s daughter as a child and recently got to hold her grandson.

Those relationships make Shore Marketplace feel less like a collection of individual businesses and more like a community under one roof.

The same is true for the customers.

The sisters say some visitors come in just to look around, while others return again and again, enjoying watching couples and families discover something new together as they walk through the store.

And when customers return and say, “This is my favorite place,” it still gives the sisters a thrill.

The marketplace also offers something an online shopping cart cannot: a chance to interact with the people and stories behind the products.

A single customer may buy items from 10 or 15 vendors in one visit, supporting not just Shore Marketplace, but dozens of small businesses working to turn their creativity into something sustainable.

That, ultimately, is what the sisters hope people take away from a visit.

They want customers to experience the Shore: the coastal style, creativity, and community feel that drew them here and continues to inspire the marketplace.

And when shoppers walk out the door, the sisters hope they leave with something simple.

“We hope every customer leaves here feeling happy,” they said, “and ready to come back.”