B. P. Knight Store
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The General Store (B. P. Knight Store)
1891. 2522 Beech Ave.
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(Photograph by D Hughes) -
(Photograph by D Hughes) -
(Photograph by D Hughes)
The Knight family bought this building in 1902 and opened a general merchandise store, which they operated until the mid-1980s when Donald Lorrier took it over and preserved the contents and character of the place. The second floor originally served as a ten-room hotel with an apartment for the Knight family. Even though it no longer serves as a general store, the interior still possesses its pressed-metal ceiling, original sales counters, rolling ladders, high shelves where goods were retrieved with a long-handled hand-operated claw, and an office area at the rear. The exterior is typical of a commercial wood-frame structure with a weatherboarded and decorative pressed-metal cornice, though the window hoods were removed. The small squares of colored glass in the upper sash are identical to those on the nearby Arcade building (RB27).
Writing Credits
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Data
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Location: Buena Vista, VirginiaRegional Overviews:Materials:
What's Nearby
Citation
Anne Carter Lee, "The General Store (B. P. Knight Store)", [Buena Vista, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-02-RB26.
Print Source
Buildings of Virginia: Valley, Piedmont, Southside, and Southwest, Anne Carter Lee and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015, 132-132.
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