Beloved Store Owner Prepares for Next Chapter

By ELIZABETH COOPER
COOPERSTOWN

If you’ve lived in Cooperstown a long time, you probably know Neil Weiller.

He’s the affable, gray-haired fellow with a giant golden retriever you might see lurking in the old entry drive of the former Cook’s Garage building. If you looked a little more closely, you would realize he was tending to the myriad displays of T-shirts and folksy decorative items there. He’s been doing that for more than three decades, but after Christmas this year Weiller is closing Muskrat Hill, the shop he has owned and operated, and heading off on a new adventure.

“It’s been a great experience,” he said on a recent afternoon. “It’s time, though.”