The Marblehead Mile (Article 18) - Lorrie Halblaub

In this series we are taking an historical look at an area that covers approximately a mile of Main Street in downtown Marblehead. Heading east from the Village limits, we will discover the facts and the stories of how Marblehead became what it is today. [This is the 18^th article in the series]

414 1/2 W. Main

This is a continuation of the story of the former Ben Richmond Gallery that was featured in last month’s article. When the gallery opened in 1981, Ben and his wife Wendy, probably had no idea that Ben’s art would be so popular that they would end up buying 7 buildings and building 4 new buildings in Marblehead. But let’s start at the beginning. 

Ben Richmond was born in Hinton, West Virginia in 1949. His family moved to the Toledo area where he met his future wife, Wendy, at Lake High School.  After college, Ben worked as a Graphic artist for Champion Spark Plug Co. in Toledo and then at the American Crayon Co. in Sandusky. They moved to Marblehead around 1977.

413 W. Main

Though he was creating graphic art as a job, he was drawn to the world of fine art. He perfected his dry brush water color style that sometimes took 40 hours per painting to create.  After a trip to Maine, Ben and Wendy realized that Marblehead, Ohio looked a lot like Maine, and they began to dream of creating a business here.  When they opened their gallery, Ben quit his job and worked on his art full time. Wendy managed the business side of the gallery. Ben looked at buildings and every day scenes in Marblehead, saw them through the eye of an artist, and made them into paintings that told a story.

Eventually they started the first gift shop in the Village and sold his art on clothing, cups, posters, and more. At the same time he was creating and selling prints of his latest paintings. They built the two buildings on the north side of main street across from the gallery, and the small one next to the gallery when they ran out of space.  Every building he built or bought was remodeled to look like it was from an East Coast sea town.  They eventually bought a home on Lake Street with a view of the lake. And they built a small building near the Coast Guard Station where Ben created his award-winning artwork, always with a view of Lake Erie for inspiration.  He branched out into doing a few sculptures, writing two books of poems, prose and sketches titled Kindred Spirits and Time Passages. He also wrote a book of fiction, Raven’s Cry that had an interesting twist.  If one found all the names of Ben’s paintings that were woven into the story, they could send in an entry for a drawing to win a trip to Chicago. 

414 W. Main

Other people picked up on Ben’s marketing of Marblehead.  Other artists and gift shops started businesses in the Village. The Richmonds were the catalyst that changed Marblehead from a quarry town to the tourist town that it is today.   After opening a gallery in Bar Harbor, ME, Ben and Wendy moved to their beloved Maine in 2012 where they live today.