The Village Barbershop has been part of downtown Clermont’s story since 1913, a time when there were few barbers in South Lake County.

The shop, opened by Percy Seaver, offered more than haircuts. Customers could also take a bath in the earliest days.

Word spread and three barbers were working chairs by the 1920s.

Today, the shop still occupies a place in the heart of downtown, as well as in the hearts of long-time customers who swap generations of stories to the steady hum of clippers.

In 1982, Mike Hoskinson was looking for a place to rent a chair when he approached Bill Dawg, who purchased the shop from Percy for $5,000 in 1966.

“He made me buy the place,” Mike says with a laugh.

Mike has spent more than four decades continuing the legacy. In the 1980s, he rebuilt and expanded the shop and even built a two-story home tucked behind the historic storefront.

Longtime barber Denise Barnes has been part of the barbershop’s history for 30 years. She moved from Orlando to Clermont in the mid-1990s looking for a slower pace and still remembers her first conversation with Mike.

“He said, ‘I’ll leave the key in the mailbox by the front door. You can start on Monday.’”

Over the decades, the shop became a gathering place where generations of families shared stories and caught up on life. Denise says some customers have been coming to her for nearly three decades.

“People are actually shocked when you tell them that this place has been in business for way over 100 years,” she says.

Clermont’s past is preserved in old photos, yearbooks and newspaper clippings that line the walls. And while the city around it has changed dramatically, Village Barbershop remains one of downtown Clermont’s enduring fixtures.

“We all talk about the old days here,” Mike says. It joins a small group of downtown mainstays — including Cheeser’s Palace Café a few blocks away — that have carried Clermont’s small-town character through decades of change.

By the numbers in 1913

●      Cost of a haircut was 25 cents

●      Straight razors were standard and the cost of a shave was 10 cents