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Page 8 NEWFOUNDLAKELIFE.COM February 2026 Community
A Surprise on the Porch at Rumney Village Store
By Donna RhoDes
RUMNEY – January 13th started out as a typical morning for Rumney Village Store owners George and Sheila Bonfiglio as they opened their doors for an- other busy day, but when George started his daily routine of step- ping out to hang the Open sign on the porch, it got a bit mysterious.
“I turned to go back inside and noticed something on a table on our porch,” he said.
What he spotted was a scale model of their business with de- tails that amazed both him and his wife.
A note lying on the “parking lot” of the handmade structure simply said, “Student from PRHS (Plymouth Regional High School) made this! Thought you might enjoy! - PRHS.”
And, enjoy it they did! The couple was thrilled as they care- fully looked over the detail and craftsmanship that went into the model of their business. At the same time, they were also in- trigued to learn who had taken the time and energy to create a scale model of their rural village store.
Throughout that morning, people gathered around this sur- prising piece of art sitting on display inside the store. Each won- dered where it could have come from and who might actually have made it. Speculation that a stu- dent in a Civics class at Plymouth Regional High School might have been given an assignment to make
a scale model of a historic New Hampshire building was the most mentioned theory.
The structure was nearly exact in scale to the store’s exterior.
Built in 1850, the cape-style building first became a business in 1865, and for the better part of the last 161 years, it has been a hub of Rumney Village.
Amazingly, the model encom- passed almost every detail of the store.
Besides the white clapboard exterior, there were hand-painted shingles on the roof, with repli- cas of this winter’s icicles even hanging from the edges. Regular customers even chuckled over the way in which the annual ice dam that formed each winter on the roof between the upstairs win- dows was also included.
The windows were all in the classic style of “six-over-six,” just like the old building, while another quaint touch was the miniature lights twinkling behind those old panes of glass.
The front porch included the metal corrugated roof from which George’s “Open” flag and a hand- made scale-sized American flag, complete with 13 stripes and 50 stars, hung daily.
Out in front of the store, the “mystery” gifter even re-created a realistic dirt and gravel parking lot where artificial piles of this winter’s plowed snow banks sur- rounded it.
Last but not least was per-
PRHS student Bridger Ekstrom was pleased to reveal he was the creator of a beautiful scale model of the historic Rumney Village Store last week, which owners Sheila (featured with him in the photo) and George Bonfiglio were delighted to find on their front porch.
retrieve the model. The plan was that his dad would pick him up to bring it to the store and present it to Sheila and George. However, it was already gone by then, leaving Bridger with a mystery of his own to ponder.
Fortunately, his dad had al- ready seen the Rumney Village Store’s social media post about the model suddenly appearing on their porch and realized someone had already dropped it off for his son. Knowing that, he still picked Bridger up and then took him right over to the store, where some well-deserved praise and gratitude awaited him.
Bridger chose his local village store, one he could closely exam- ine, take photos, and do anything else necessary to create a realis- tic model of the Rumney Village Store. Its structure, history, and proximity all fit well with his as- signment, unlike a few other class- mates who took on the challenge of selecting historic buildings across the state.
The owners, as well as their customers, were both thrilled and humbled to see the store recog- nized through his project.
“Thank you, Bridger, for all of your hard work building this and your thoughtfulness in gifting it to the store. George and I wish you the best of everything,” Sheila said. “Anyone who knows me per- sonally knows how much I appre- ciate art, and this is a wonderful creation! Thank you!”
haps Sheila’s favorite detail- a handcrafted, miniature replica of their wood-burned sign, reading “Rumney Village Store,” which hangs all year long over her large flower box.
“This was the first year I didn’t pull the dead weeds out of the flower box before winter, and look- whoever did this included them in the model, too,” she laughed. “I’ve got to find out who did this!”
Word spreads fast in a small town, though, so it wasn’t long be- fore the Bonfiglio couple’s mystery was solved.
Sheila said that when Bridger
Ekstrom and his dad stopped in their store later that afternoon, she pointed out the model on display, still wondering aloud who might have made it. Bridger just smiled and looked at her as he simply said, “I did!”
Mystery solved!
It turns out that it was indeed a Civics class assignment, and he chose the historic Rumney Village Store to be the subject of his proj- ect.
With the work completed and graded by his teacher, Bridger said he had gone to his Civics classroom after school that day to
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