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Beidelman’s Now an Official Landmark
Beidelman’s Now an Official Landmark
Beidelman Furniture, Naperville Preservation Inc.
For almost a century, the big brick building on the northwest corner of Washington Street and Jackson Avenue has been a prominent landmark, letting northbound travelers know that they are indeed in downtown Naperville. As one of the largest buildings downtown, Beidelman Furniture is an important entry feature to the city.
Now it’s an official City of Naperville Landmark, a distinction unanimously approved by the City Council at its Tuesday, Aug. 20 meeting.
The Beidelman family, owners of Beidelman Furniture, the oldest business in DuPage County, requested local landmark designation for its historic buildings at 235-239 S. Washington.
The designation includes the iconic furniture store on Washington—built in 1928 by Owen “Dutch” Beidelman on the site of an earlier building created by his father, Oliver Beidelman—and a workshop that dates from the 1860s, where Beidelman ancestor Frederick Long founded the furniture and mortuary business on Jackson Avenue.
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.
Designed in a Collegiate Gothic style, the three-story furniture store on Washington is both architecturally and historically important. The north portion of the building was designed as a funeral parlor, with large arched windows on the second and third floor. It includes the first elevator installed in Naperville.
“We’re proud of our building, our business and our long-term commitment to Naperville, where our family has lived and worked for five generations,” said Katelyn Heitmanek, great-granddaughter of Oliver Beidelman and one of the properties’ owners. She added that landmark designation can help them apply for various tax advantages, loans and grants.
In the 1970s Owen “Dutch” Beidelman bricked over the windows on the second and third floor. Modern windows are much more efficient, so the Beidelman family would like to replace the bricks with new windows. The original parapet could also be re-created.
The landmark designation has the enthusiastic support of the owners. “We know that we own and work in a landmark building. We are thrilled the City Council acknowledges that through official designation,” Heitmanek said.
The landmark designation is a first for a commercial building in Naperville. The only other official locally landmarked buildings are Old Nichols Library and the Woman’s Club on Washington Street, the Truitt building on east Jefferson, and the Clow House in south Naperville.
World-wide, landmark buildings serve a wide variety of commercial, for-profit uses, including housing, offices, retailing and warehouses. Beidelman’s currently has tenants on the second floor. “We believe potential future tenants will appreciate the opportunity to have space in an officially designated landmark,” Heitmanek said.
“The Beidelman family deserve kudos for protecting their historic buildings,” said Jane Burke, secretary of Naperville Preservation Inc. “They realize that historic preservation can help encourage a vibrant economy while also protecting Naperville’s downtown.”
The City Council approved the landmark designation with little discussion. “I think it’s very exciting and want to thank the owners for going through that process,” said Councilman Patrick Kelly. “It’s great news that the building will be landmarked.”
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Beidelman Furniture 2020—Source: RealVision
Sidebar: Talented young architect designed his own funeral home
It was an interesting challenge for a young draftsman/architect: Design a building that would be used as a furniture store, a funeral chapel and an ambulance service. A mixed-use development decades before the term was invented, the seemingly contradictory uses made sense because building coffins was akin to building furniture. As for the ambulance service—given the relatively rustic level of early 20th century, small town emergency medicine care—it often made sense for the ambulance to be near the mortuary.
The Beidelman family entrusted this design assignment to Naperville native Irving E. Bentz. He seamlessly blended the disparate uses through the use of red brick throughout, but included arched windows and other Collegiate Gothic touches—often used for libraries, churches and other respected institutional uses—for the mortuary/ambulance northern portion.
Landmark and historic register forms always ask if a building was designed by a prominent architect. Bentz did not leave behind a large body or work, not because Bentz wasn’t talented, but because he died at age 25. Therefore, in 1930 young Mr. Bentz’s funeral took place in the funeral home he designed just two years earlier.
The Naperville Clarion obituary said, “He has left a number of notable constructions in this city, not the least of them is the building in which today we honor him.”
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