Description of Historic Place

The Palace Hotel is a two-storey, wood-frame building with a steeply pitched front gabled roof. It is fronted by a wooden false front on the upper level and a single-storey brick storefront on the lower level on Main Street in Penticton, British Columbia.

Heritage Value

The Palace Hotel is valued for its unique identity as the only remaining wood-framed commercial building on Main Street. Constructed in 1902, it is an important reminder of the era of false-fronted wooden buildings that pre-dated fireproof brick and concrete construction. At the end of World War I it was converted to a hardware store; later the single-storey brick front was added.

The Palace Hotel has historic value related to its original use as a hotel and as a landmark structure that reflects the importance of Penticton as a staging area for the trade between the South Okanagan and Similkameen mining towns and the Okanagan Lake transportation system. The hotel was an important meeting place for commercial visitors and for local boarders, as it was considered a clean, well-run establishment without a saloon, and also hosted a veranda where local news could be heard. In later years it served as a retail outlet for the Reid-Coates Hardware and more recently as a stereo outlet. The brick addition (c. 1919) has served as an office for the City Deputy of Public Works and as a doctor's office. These uses reflect the changing landscape of one of the core blocks of downtown Penticton.

The hotel is also important because it is a reminder of the original broad dimensions of Main Street before 1911.

SOURCE: City of Penticton Civic File

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Palace Hotel include its:
-large two-storey, wood-frame structure
-original features including its: board cladding, false front, double hung windows and flagpole