For the first time, Naperville city council members granted landmark status to a commercial building.
Council members last week unanimously approved designating the Beidelman buildings, including Beidelman Furniture at 235-239 S. Washington St., as landmarks. The Beidelman Furniture store is considered the longest continuously operating furniture business in Illinois.
Katelyn Heitmanek is the fifth-generation family member to run Beidelman Furniture. The Beidelmans recently were granted local landmark status for their historic buildings at 235-239 S. Washington St.
Brian Hill/bhill@dailyherald.com
“We’re really excited to be the first commercial building to be landmarked in Naperville,” said Katelyn Heitmanek, the fifth generation of the Beidelman family to run the store. “We’re proud to dig our heels in and continue to be part of the future history of Naperville.”
The property includes the furniture store and a workshop. The furniture store is in a three-story Collegiate Gothic-style building erected in 1928 for Oliver Beidelman, one of the founders of the local YMCA. The workshop, which faces Jackson Avenue, predates the other structure and was built in the 1850s.
Because the larger building contained a funeral home and a furniture store when it was built, there are chapel windows on the north end of the Washington Street facade. The building also has the first elevator in Naperville and it was the first retail outlet for Kroehler furniture.
Fred Long, Oliver Beidelman’s uncle and a local cabinet maker, started the business in the 1860s. He used the workshop.
The Jackson Street workshop is where Peter Kroehler learned the furniture business and started the Naperville Lounge Company, which later became Kroehler Manufacturing, the city’s largest employer for many decades. Beidelman Furniture was the first retail store for Kroehler Furniture, according to a city news release.
Heitmanek said the family sought landmark status to be proactive after seeing other historic buildings demolished. She added the family hopes to begin work to “restore the building to how it was first built.”
The landmark status, which was included on the city council’s consent agenda last Tuesday, was approved with little fanfare. However, council members received more than 20 written comments or positions of support for granting landmark status.
“I think it’s very exciting,” Naperville City Councilman Patrick Kelly said after last Tuesday’s vote. “I think it’s going to be great news that that building will be landmarked and here for good in downtown Naperville.”
• Daily Herald staff writer Katlyn Smith contributed to this report.
Beidelman Furniture’s historic buildings in Naperville have been granted landmark status.
Courtesy of RealVision