Opened in October 2006, Rippe’s Shoes is only the latest addition to a family legacy of retailing stretching back more than a century. The idea of featuring the store’s lines of quality shoes in a venue “right on the street,” was the brainchild of owner Ben Rippe. Early in the 20th century, his grandfather and namesake Benjamin A. Rippe moved from New York to Danville where he established in 1907 a business that quickly earned a reputation for quality focusing on that fashion essential for the would-be Gibson Girl—the hat. As business prospered, the store expanded from its origins in the city’s Warehouse District to Main Street’s 400 block.

In 1947, the firm’s second generation, Murray Rippe, moved the store uptown, relocating to its present site at 559 Main Street. In 1965, that retail space took in an adjoining storefront, nearly doubling again the size of the store.

Pushing the premises all the way to Main Street’s corner with Floyd Street became possible when Ben Rippe, a third-generation family clothier, acquired the former c1950 Virginia ABC store. Here, Rippe launched his idea to adapt, very subtly, the old ABC store, tying its Art Moderne style to his existing apparel departments nearby. Preserving the ABC’s classic cast-stone and glass block exterior, Rippe and his designer succeeded in retrofitting into its interior, sleek early modern-style shelves and alcoves to complement stylish footwear. These new functions and forms now respond seamlessly to the character of the historic building.

During the tour, visitors also will have a chance to peek behind the showroom at other untouched features of the former ABC store; notable are early fluorescent fixtures hanging from a snappy mid-20th-century patterned tin ceiling.