Several buildings in Wells are celebrating 90 years of being pillars of the artistic community.
On Nov. 30 a celebration will be held to mark the anniversary of the Wells Hotel, Sunset Theatre and St. George Studio. The evening will include dancing, food and fun.
"The event is designed around a little bit of a throwback to the original opening party which was sort of a grand affair," said Wells Hotel owner Jillian Merrick. She explained in 1934 the town's power utility was just installed and they used the opining of the hotel to turn on power to the town for the first time. "We don't have a ton of details about what the event would've entailed but we know it would have been quite a bit of food and drink and dancing and people dressing up and coming out."
The evening will start at the St. George Studio, which was originally the town's Anglican church. People will be able to look at some of Peter Corbett's plein air oil paintings around the studio.
"It makes a perfect studio slash gallery because you've got this big wall space, tall, tons of room, you don't have posts running through the centre of the room blocking your view so it's absolutely a wonderful studio," Corbett told The Observer. "It's an old wooden building and it's got stained glass windows, it's got lots of charm and it's pretty wonderful."
He said the last church service was in 1966 and when the mine closed down, so did the church. Since 1991 artists have owned the building with Corbett being the third one to make it his gallery.
"It's found its purpose," Corbett said. "The ceilings are 12 feet so it's a big space and it's so rare to find that other than in a warehouse or something where this is a beautiful wooden buildings that's this size. And there's so few of these buildings left. If this building was in the city it would have got torn down long ago."
Corbett said there are thousands of paintings for people to look at and he'll have the gallery open from Nov. 20 to the Christmas holidays seven days a week.
"It was a pretty tough summer, like we rely on tourism and with the town under an evacuation order, several times on evacuation alert, it was a pretty tough summer for sure," he said. "So hopefully this will put a little boost and get some folks up to town for everybody and celebrate the birthdays."
After leaving the gallery, those celebrating will take a short walk to the hotel where they'll have food and be able to see some of the historic photos on display.
Merrick bought the hotel in 2022 after a career of supporting non-profits and small businesses.
"Taking over the hotel, it was a huge sort of task, but it's been such an amazing space to see all of that come together," she said. "It's just so gratifying to have this really special space to be able to bring everything that you love and the people you love enjoy together and try new things and be creative and watch it be successful and grow."
She said Wells is a very special community and has more events going on each year than it has residents in the town.
Merrick is also hoping that the celebration encourages people to share some information about the hotel's history with her.
"There's a fairly good documentation of who owned the hotel and when it was in operation and what each owner did with the hotel," she said. But there are pieces of the hotel's history that are missing. "I, for example, have zero photographs of the inside of the hotel anytime before the 1980s. I haven't found any guest books or records from pre-1980s."
Merrick said the community of Wells was designed around having a central area with shops, housing, school and recreation in a main area, which included the hotel.
"It just feels like you are really a caretaker of a piece of the community," she said of owning the hotel. "The hotel has always had its role and I think I've been feeling really proud over the last two years of trying to rebuild a tourism economy here post-COVID and seeing so much success of people coming to Wells for Wells. Not just being a stopover for Barkerville or Bowron Lakes."
After celebrants are done at the hotel, they'll head to the Sunset Theatre where a jazz quartet will be playing led by Donna Williams.
The Sunset's director of presentations Julia Mackey said the theatre is packed with history.
"Its original use was actually a movie theatre and so the booth as we have it today was the original projection area. They had one of those old beautiful reel to reel film projectors," Mackey said. After a new theatre opened up in the 1940s the Sunset lost popularity and became a gambling hall. "Still to this day if you walk into the Sunset Theatre right at the edge of the stage you can still see all these old cigarette burns."
Mackey said the theatre's owners, Dave and Karen Jefferey have owned it for around 25 years and they wanted to keep the wood as is to keep that history as part of the building.
When the Jeffereys bought the Sunset they did extensive renovations, adding a more solid foundation and bringing it back to its former glory. The theatre is mainly used for live performances.
"I think it really is the heart of the artistic and cultural essence of Wells," she said. "I think what makes it special is because there's 90 years of history in that building and there's been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of really beautiful performances in there and I think the history of that has created this fabric that really has made people who live in this community and who visit this community come back to the Sunset time and time again."
She said every performer who has been to the theatre wants to go back because of how wonderful and intimate a venue it is and because of how the Jeffereys brought it back to its former glory.
Tickets to the event can be purchased at the Wells Hotel's website.
