Finding parking in the Sound View section of Old Lyme in the summer can be tricky, but finding the big, beachy gray building housing the Carousel Shop, and finding what you need inside, is easy.

Just a block north of the beach, the Carousel Shop is actually four businesses in a row on Hartford Avenue, all run by Jerry and Dee Vowles for the last 28 years.

Dee Vowles said they had been considering purchasing a cottage on the shoreline so they and their two young children could enjoy time at the beach. Jerry got to talking with the previous owner of the carousel, and in discussing where the family would live, they found out the store next to the carousel was also for sale.

“We talked about having a cottage at the beach, and we ended up with a merry-go-round and a store,” she said.

The carousel is a 1925 Allan Herschell with 20 horses, two chariots and a brass ring dispenser for riders to catch as they go around. Dee said it was designed to be packed up and moved from park to park, but it has been at Sound View since about 1976, though a carousel has been in that spot since 1948.

The Carousel Shop Too, which is on the other side of the main store on Hartford Avenue, was purchased by the family in 1999, and the main store was renovated in 2007 to cover the alley between the ice cream shop and the beach shop.

Jerry Vowles said Sound View wasn’t always the family destination it is now, and at one point it was difficult to get locals to come down to the beach.

Now, Hartford Avenue is home to the beach association’s annual Independence Day parade and the Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural Osprey Festival in June, when the shop offered free rides on the carousel.

“The main thing is that now it’s getting better and people want to come here,” he said.

Employee Annie Nyberg said the Carousel Shop is a “one-stop shop.” Visitors during the day can hit the beach shop to pick up some sunscreen or rent inner tubes, and the Carousel Shop Too next door has clothing and housewares. At night, people flock down to the shop to eat ice cream and go for a ride on the eponymous carousel.

“It gets really busy between 7 and 9 because that’s when the carousel is open,” she said. “People come down and walk around if they’re from the beaches down here ... for ice cream at night after dinner, but the big attraction is the carousel.”

The Carousel Shop serves J. J. Lawsen ice cream, including a salted caramel chocolate pretzel hard ice cream that Jerry said is quickly becoming a best-seller.

Dee said many people who have cottages in Sound View are from central Connecticut or Massachusetts; Old Lyme residents often visit the other beaches in the area, such as Point O’ Woods, Old Lyme Shores, Miami Beach, Colony Beach and Hawk’s Nest. However, the shop and the carousel have become an intergenerational affair in Sound View as families return every year.

“We’ve had kids that help out at the carousel – you know, they collect the tokens – and now their children are doing it,” she said.

Jerry added that many kids start with their parents helping them catch the rings on the carousel, continue to ride it into their teens and then volunteer there.

“It’s like an institution in itself,” he said.

The Vowles also plan to keep the business in the family, hoping their daughter Jen, who was three months old when the carousel was purchased, will eventually take over.

a.hutchinson@theday.com