New Owner Takes Helm at Old Lyme’s Black Hall Marina

OLD LYME, CT – When Gene Chmiel drove down Shore Road on fishing trips from Colchester in the 1990s, he saw potential in the small, weathered marina on the edge of Great Island marsh known as Black Hall Marina. 

At the time, he was a marketing man who liked to fish. He noticed the little shack at 132 Shore Road was often closed, sometimes with a handwritten sign directing customers to find the owner at a nearby bar. 

“I kept driving by here and just thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is such a great spot,'” he said. 

With an eye for branding, he saw the overlooked gem for what it would eventually become: a destination for kayaking, fishing and paddlesports with an internet commerce operation that shipped tricked-out kayaks all over the world as Black Hall Outfitters.

After 27 years under the Chmiel family, the marina has been sold to new owner Shawn Summers of Wilbraham, Massachusetts. The plan is to expand operations on the existing footprint while maintaining an identity built on slip rentals, on-the-water experiences and kayak customization at a nearby warehouse. 

Chmiel, doing business as the Clinton-based Jolly Roger Enterprises LLC, sold the property to Summers for $1.8 million in March. 

General Manager Tucker Stone said building out physically is not in the cards for a business bound by water. 

“We’re taking the space that we were given and really trying to maximize it,” Stone said. “Have it geared towards not only vacationers down on the shoreline, but really kind of have a staple of the local community as well.”

Chmiel, 63, said his father, a retired New York City firefighter turned property redeveloper, bought the marina in 1999 at Chmiel’s urging and operated it as a bait shop and kayak rental business. When his father became ill and later died in 2014, Chmiel stepped in. 

“It kind of forced my hand,” Chmiel said of taking over the family business. 

He dredged the marina, built the new Black Hall Outfitters shop and boathouse, and turned the business into a year-round operation that he described as one of the largest dealers of Old Town kayaks in the United States. 

Through the windows of the shop earlier this month, he pointed out the site’s location on the edge of 500 acres of protected marshland in the Great Island Wildlife Area. It also marks the southern terminus of the Connecticut River Paddlers Trail. 

“Those were just great assets for us to really build our paddlesport rental business,” he said. 

Chmiel’s children grew up around the marina, eventually working there through high school and college. Now that they are raising families of their own, he and his wife Audra have begun thinking about spending more time with grandchildren who live elsewhere. 

Chmiel also sold his eight-year-old Westbrook location in January, which he purchased for its similar location along protected marshland within the Stewart B. McKinney Wildlife Refuge. 

The facility and Black Hall Outfitters brand were sold to his business partner’s sons, with existing staff retained. 

He noted Stone’s brother serves as the general manager in Westbrook.

“It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Chmiel said. 

Taking the Lead

Summers, a 40-year-old real estate investor, said he was compelled to become part of the local tourism industry because of the opportunities shoreline living will provide his three young children in the near- and longer-term. 

“When they’re in high school or college and they are looking for summer work, they’ll have it built in. They can come home and be excited for summer, to work there and play there,” he said. 

Summers, his wife and children have been summer residents in the Point O’ Woods Beach community since 2022. 

“I’d been planning for a couple years to make a big move in real estate,” he said. “When this came on the market, it really pushed me to put the final pieces together.”

The coach of a Friday night basketball clinic at Point O’ Woods, he said he’s most excited about taking over the summer paddling camp he intends to make as educational as it is fun. 

“I love working with the kids,” he said. “And I’m so excited to bring that energy and take the lead.” 

Meanwhile, Chmiel said he’s not disappearing entirely from Old Lyme or Westbrook.

“Whatever the new ownership might need on either spot, I’m happy to help,” he said.

Over the years, Chmiel said the business attracted customers running the gamut from locals to professional athletes to international tourists.

One of the most unexpected moments came when two members of the pop phenomenon BTS, Jung Kook and Jimin, visited while filming their Disney+ reality series “Are You Sure?!”

After Jung Kook appeared in a Black Hall T-shirt in a promotional trailer, the marina sold out of its inventory within minutes and saw an influx of international visitors.

“Two or three days later, we had three women who Ubered from Kennedy Airport after flying from Malaysia to be here,” Chmiel said.

Quieter moments also stood out for Chmiel, like when visitors would gather to watch sunsets over the marsh during the COVID-19 pandemic. He put out food donation bins asking visitors to pay it forward. 

The effort generated enough food donations to send to multiple local food banks.

Those local moments are part of the community theme Summers and Stone emphasized as they take over leadership.

Chmiel noted the similarities between his younger self and new owner, who would both drive by the marina on the way home to a wife and kids, thinking about the possibilities. 

“Shawn Summers is basically me 25 or 30 years ago,” he said.

Now, Chmiel and his wife are exploring places from Florida to South Carolina as possible retirement spots at some point in the future. But after decades spent along Connecticut’s shoreline, he predicted they will maintain a connection to the region.

“The summertime up here, and the fall, is just kind of spectacular,” he said. “I’m not sure we’d ever want to not be a part of that.”