A dream is a wish your heart makes, and local entrepreneur Kelly O’Connell is making her dreams and wishes come true through her work at Lighthouse Keeper’s Pantry.

Sometimes a story writes itself. You can’t always see it unfolding if you are living it day-to-day, but later, once all of the pieces come together and form, you can see it. Clearly. And you realize how it was all meant to play out. The way Kelly O’Connell’s story has unfolded is slightly reminiscent of a Nancy Meyers movie. 

The Cape Cod native says, “I always marched to the beat of my own drum and I never felt I fit in anywhere.” After graduating from Dennis-Yarmouth High School, the daughter of a school teacher and a painting contractor/boatman put the Cape in her rearview mirror and headed for New York City where she studied product development at the Fashion Institute of Technology, a relatively small area of study with less than 20 others in her same major. Shortly after graduation she was offered a position working for Martha Stewart managing her line of hard goods such as cookware, kitchen gadgets, and dishes, to name just a few. O’Connell thrived in her role and eventually transitioned into launching Stewart’s business on QVC where she worked with Stewart’s apparel line, skincare, food products, garden equipment and home decor. After almost a decade with Stewart, the hardworking O’Connell had earned such a reputation among the lifestyle niche that she was recruited for similar brand work with Ree Drummond, commonly known as The Pioneer Woman. She reflects, “They wanted someone who knew the business, who knew what quality was, about factories and who could find better solutions for the brand.” In her role working for The Pioneer Woman she says, “I was building strategy for the Walmart end of her business and developing food products—driving strategy to grow the business and then analyzing the sales and guiding the teams to where we needed to be going; find what was working or not working and how to add or subtract and change those things.”

Little did she know the experiences she was developing through her work with celebrity lifestyle brands in the areas of food product development, merchandising, design, marketing and product ideation, would become the blueprint of her own business.

Though her career in New York was flourishing, the month was March, and the year was 2020 and COVID had all but shut the city down. She returned to her hometown of Yarmouthport and as she sat at her parents’ dining room table working at her laptop, among the uncertainty of the time, she noticed more and more neighbors walking by. She says, “I’m really a busy body at heart; a Type A New Yorker, and my brain usually moves way too fast. I like to keep busy.” As such, she remarked to her parents that she should put a little table outside to sell cut flowers from the garden and homemade jam for passerbys. 

The jam was an unexpected and immediate hit, and her routine quickly became working online for The Pioneer Woman during the day and once she closed her laptop, she donned an apron to create more preserves at night. She reflects, “All the while this is going on, I was falling in love with the Cape again and coming to an understanding that I didn’t want to go back to New York. This is my community,” O’Connell shares, “We had all been going through such a hard time, and I wanted nothing more than to make my mark here. I didn’t know how I was going to figure that out or what it would look like.” 

She met with a local friend, Greg Bilezikian, and shared her thoughts on wanting to remain on Cape. Coincidentally, Bilezikian shared that he had always wanted to get involved in the food industry. Within a week she had partnered with him and created a business plan that would become Lighthouse Keeper’s Pantry. “The idea for the brand hit me very quickly. I came up with the idea of my favorite place—Sandy Neck and the lighthouse there. I thought about how the lighthouse keepers would have spent their long winters; how they would provision from the natural landscape of the beach, whether that be wild blueberries or fishing—much like what was going on here at the time and in my own life, as here I was keeping busy making jam,” says O’Connell. 

This is one of those moments where, if this were a Nancy Meyers film, there would be dramatic music playing and the audience would sense the seismic shift that was about to occur and all of the prior pieces of O’Connell’s life were about to align themselves in a completely different, yet perfect, predestined way.  

As if on cue, serendipity stepped in and a beautiful, historic old building, just a mile from her home—formerly a bakery—came up for sale. With the agreement she would run the cafe/shop as well as develop a wholesale gourmet food business, she moved into the building’s upstairs apartment. Emboldened by a motivation to succeed and combining all of her skills and passions, she made the shop her own; adding new upholstery and devoting an entire wall of sailboat paintings, the view from the lighthouse. She created a menu around her recipes and gourmet foods, and within six weeks from closing on the property, she was open for business. And she pinches herself almost daily that this is her life.

“It was all basically turnkey,” O’Connell beams, “The main work had been done by the previous owners and it’s so beautiful. Every detail. It’s like living in a wedding cake. Being in New York I was always so limited in my kitchen space, but I was always around all the right tools and equipment. My career was working in studio kitchens and now I live in a place with the kitchen I always wanted but never had.”

Living above the shop, she says, is wonderful in so many ways but is simultaneously exhausting. However, she quickly adds, “I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s so important to me that I run a business that is consistent and that services my community. I take it really seriously.” She loves that she now has regulars and families who come in, that people take photos in front of the store and that there’s a sense of charm back in the village that she grew up in.

Her home office off the living room is where she researches and plans for the future of the brand, like the recent acquisition of Cape Cod Saltworks, which now allows her to make her own flavored sea salts. Perhaps a cookbook, a second location or even a television show are in the notes she jots down borne out of the whirlwind of ideas that spin in her creative mind. A fashionista at heart, she surrounds herself with beautiful pieces and in the dream kitchen she gets to create in, it really doesn’t feel like work at all. The images you see on her social media of her baking or cooking are all taken from her apartment. “The gold Calcutta marble in my kitchen is to die for. There’s a French Lacanche custom range that is just gorgeous, a built-in Sub-Zero® refrigerator and built in cabinetry; there are pocket doors and beautiful windows—even the molding makes me happy. When I look around I just couldn’t have dreamed up a more beautiful space.” 

John Lennon sang, “Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy.” And for O’Connell it’s true—this life she is living is where she’s meant to be and sharing her love of the Cape is easy. And genuine. Being on her boat, cooking for family and friends and incorporating all of the passions she cultivated while living in New York are manifesting themselves in this new chapter. “I was never meant to follow a traditional path, and I wasn’t sure how I could live here on the Cape and in this space that I love so much—so I sort of stumbled my way into a career that allows me to let all my creativity and experience of product development and branding shine.” 

“Sometimes when I kind of step back and slow down and I have some moments of clarity, I look around and think about how grateful I am. Knowing how burnt out I was being in the city compared to now; I can get out of bed and go downstairs to the most beautiful space to host my business—it’s the luckiest thing.” 

Follow Kelly’s store on Instagram @lighthousekeeperspantry and stop by to see the wintry window she created for the season at 173 Main Street, Yarmouthport. Shop their small batch, locally inspired creations online at lighthousekeeperspantry.com.

Leslie Hatton is the assistant editor at Cape Cod Life Publications.