Anyone who travels along Everly Brothers Boulevard in Central City knows the little red box, sitting at the corner of Second Street. With it’s welcoming porch and striped awning, Apple House Mercantile is a one-of-a-kind shop filled with an eclectic mix of goods, and it’s the only boutique found in a shipping container in Kentucky.
Misty Stanley had worked in the retail industry for more than a decade when the covid-19 pandemic hit, and her job at a local shop took a hit. Moved to another division of the business, Stanley held on for a few months before deciding to take her parent’s advice and open her own business.
“So in July [2020] I filed for my sales tax number. My idea was to start my own business at home, an online boutique,” Stanley said. She figured it would allow her time to get more involved in her parent’s business. Forest and Theda Deason ran a business renting billboards and storage space.
Just three weeks after Stanley decided to set the wheels in motion to move toward self-employment, her mother became ill with covid. “Ten days later she passed,” Stanley said. With her world thrown into chaos, she knew her plans had to change.
She stepped in to fill her mother’s role in the family business, and tried to help her father move into a new life without his wife of 46 years. He offered to match her salary through the end of the year, allowing her to build her business and help out with Deason Custom Signs, and Deason Rentals.
“So really it was like a gift he gave me,” she said.
Stanley’s father owns the Apple House Plaza in Central City. With all of the uncertainty and changes thrown at her, she and her father decided to move her online idea into the real world. There were no vacancies in the plaza, but she had an idea for a different kind of shop.
“I showed him a picture of these storage containers turned into a house,” Stanley said. “He got to looking and we found one for $3,800, painted and delivered.”
The Apple House Mercantile is housed in a 40-foot cube container. It has made less than 10 trips across the ocean, making it a second-grade container. She knew she wanted it to be bright red, with a red and white striped awning, just like the old Apple House Market her grandparents used to run.
The Apple House Market was owned by Clifford and Marie Deason, where they operated the multi-purpose market from 1950 through 1978. The location offered a high-traffic spot for travelers looking for something to snack on, or a Kentucky-themed souvenir.
“They were the only place in town who offered crushed ice,” Stanley said. “They would get their blocks of ice, bring it back and put it in their ice house and crush it. So people who were going to the river or to the lake on Saturdays and Sundays would come here.”
Her grandfather would travel to Nashville once or twice a week to pick up fresh produce and flowers at the farmers market, and the store carried live bait along with the crushed ice for those headed out on a fishing trip. “They sold pretty much everything but liquor,” Stanley said.
The corner lot passed out of the family’s hands for a few decades, but in 2008 Forest Deason purchased the property and created Apple House Plaza. “I’m the third generation here on this piece of property,” Stanley said.
With just 320 square-feet of space, Stanley said she tries to carry items that give a nod back to the Apple House Market. She stocks the space full of unique and custom items, like t-shirts featuring Central City and Muhlenberg County, Kentucky souvenirs, specialty candles, and interesting snacks.
There are gourmet mixes for all sorts of concoctions, chocolate, cotton candy and even bubbles for the kids to blow in flavors like maple-bacon and juicy watermelon. There are also handmade items like earrings and bracelets.
Stanley said she gets a mix of locals and people just traveling through town, much like her grandparents did in years past. They see the sign that says souvenirs and they come in. Sometimes they ask if she sells apples in there. She hopes the little red box catches people’s eye, and makes her a destination when they’re visiting Central City.
Having the store has also helped her get to know her grandparents in a way she never knew them before. She was only three when her grandfather passed away, and while she has some memories of the Apple House Market, she is learning more about it everyday.
“People come in here all the time and say, ‘I worked for your granddad’, or ‘I sacked groceries for years’, so that’s been one of the neatest things.”
When Stanley opened the doors of Apple House Mercantile in November of 2020, she didn’t know what to expect. It was in the worst part of the pandemic, when there was so much uncertainty. Since then, she has built a following and keeps turning heads with her boutique in a storage container, painted red with that iconic striped awning.
After losing her mother to covid, being able to bring back a little bit of her own family’s past has been a blessing for Stanley. “I’ve always said, you’ve got to find the sunshine, in every phase of life. Even in your darkest time, you have to find that. So for me, this was it.”
