Built at about the time the boom of the late 1920s was sputtering, this two-story commercial building (and its neighbor at 208) occupies a portion of the expansive site of Exchange Warehouse, one of Danville’s leading tobacco auction houses. During the Civil War, an antebellum warehouse at this site was appropriated by General Lee as Prison #2, one of six factories or warehouses used to incarcerate Union prisoners from Richmond’s Libby Prison. Local oral tradition suggests that a remnant of the old Exchange Warehouse, or even its Civil War warehouse-prison predecessor, may survive as part of a nearby drive-through bay.

Anticipating perhaps the austerity of the Depression era, this no-frills storefront appears first to have welcomed customers as Rippe, Friedman & Kobre, a dry goods retailer, followed by Modern Food Stores. Among its principals were members of the Wyatt family, associated with J.W. Wyatt, one of the city’s veteran wholesale grocers for decades. For 15 years, it was also one of the area’s pioneer chain grocers, Kroger. From 1952 until several years ago, Beanie’s Army & Navy Store was housed here, where many a local boy scout purchased his regulation BSA uniform.

In 2010, photographer Sally Popu and painter Wayne Kumpitsch, both New Yorkers, (but originally from Hungary and Connecticut respectively) discovered this space, bought the building and relocated. Its roomy second floor, lighted by large double-hung windows, intrigued the couple with its potential as an ideal work space. On the street level is a commercial art gallery, The Danvillian, that has gleaming floors and a newly restored pressed-tin ceiling. Their studio apartment is in back of the gallery.