Jeanette Beaven always loved to paint.
As a child growing up in Penticton she distinctly remembers eagerly awaiting for her mother to return home from work at Stock’s camera shop on Main Street (where Pentagon Board Shop currently sits), with “dented” art supplies to play with.
Although Jeanette would never refer to herself as “a real artist,” she has always maintained her enthusiasm for the arts, but these days that passion translates into her heavy involvement in Penticton’s arts community as well as her management of the Dragon’s Den, an art supply store and gift shop owned and operated by her mother Jill since 1987...
..While both women reflect fondly on their 30-plus years running the shop, Jill appears especially enthusiastic when she recalls discovering the historic building in 1986.
Over the course of three decades, she explains, as she and Jeanette begin poring over black and while photos of the original building after its construction in 1911, much like Front Street itself, the Dragon’s Den has evolved.
Situated in a 106 year-old building originally dubbed the third hotel and first “non-flammable” one, there was a barber shop and cafe on the main floor. Room prices started at 50 cents per night with weekly rates available.
The structure was quickly expanded to include additional living spaces available to rent, primarily to single men working in the mines. Renters could also receive a bagged lunch for an extra 35 cents a day.
By the time the Beavens purchased the structure, Jeanette said it had sat neglected for a number of years, having last operated as “a teen disco in the late-70s.”
From the Penticton Herald