Growing up in Naperville, Jeannie Coe remembers Beidelman Furniture as the place you went when you wanted to buy new furniture.
“You would go in and the store is just this beautiful old building, corner store windows so you can see literally everything, with these crazy tall ceilings on the first floor. And there’s this wild elevator in the back you could go in. It was like out of the movies,” Coe, 53, said.
It’s where her family purchased things like the dining room set Coe would later inherit, and where she and her husband bought their own furniture as they built their own life in Naperville, she said. It was a cornerstone of the community and one of the last remnants of the Naperville in which she grew up.
When she learned the 165-year-old business — the oldest store not just in Naperville but DuPage County — was closing, she felt “gutted,” she said.
“I naively imagined it would never go away,” Coe said.
On Thursday, Beidelman Furniture announced on Facebook that it would be closing its doors at the end of the month.
“We will miss YOU!!” the message posted by the family-owned business said. “Last day of Business will be April 29. Thank you for everything Naperville!!!”
Reached by phone Friday, co-owner Lana Heitmanek said multiple factors contributed to the decision to shut their doors, including family members getting older and mounting competition from online shopping outlets.
“I’m also 80 years old and I knew that someday we would probably close. I’m sort of happy to see it in my lifetime instead of dying and never knowing the future of the business,” the fourth-generation owner said.
But she has mixed feelings about it too, she said.
“We’re always going to be sentimental because we’ve been here for so long, but then again, times have changed,” she said.
Multiple buyers have been interested in the building, Heitmanek said. There is a sale contract in place with a closing date set for mid-May, but the prospective buyers are still reviewing the deal, Autumn Psaros, senior vice president for Caton Kitchel Real Estate Group, told the Naperville Sun by email.
Because the deal is pending, Psaros would offer no other details.
Standard Goods, which occupies part of the historic building at the corner of Washington Street and Jackson Avenue, will remain at its current location, store owner Tom Kiecker said. He learned the building was for sale about six months ago, he said.
“I was sad and a little surprised, but not totally surprised,” Kiecker said. “I could tell that their business had been declining over there a little bit so I knew it had to be a little tough.”
The origins of Beidelman Furniture date back to 1861, when then-cabinetmaker Frederick Long established a furniture business in a frame building at the corner of Washington and Jackson. Five decades later, Long’s nephew Oliver J. Beidelman purchased the company.
In 1928, Beidelman replaced Long’s original wooden store with a three-story brick building that was made a city landmark in 2024. Long had a workshop facing Jackson Avenue that remains as part of the property.
Beidelman’s son, Owen, took over the operation in 1966.
“(Owen Beidelman) had many jobs in Naperville and he just loved the furniture store. That was his passion. He just absolutely adored it,” said his daughter Cassie Kunsch, who is Lana Heitmanek’s sister.
Indeed, Owen — known as “Dutch” to those close to him — wore many hats in Naperville. He served on the city council for 24 years and was a member of the Naperville Rotary Club for more than 50, according to his obituary. He also was a partner in the Beidelman-Kunsch Funeral Home, which got its start through the furniture store and remains in business today.
“He really liked dealing with people,” Kunsch said. “I remember as a kid, he hated the weekends. He couldn’t wait for Monday to come around so he could go back to work. That’s how dedicated he was.”
Beidelman Furniture gained a reputation not just for its personable sales people, but for the quality of the furniture it sold.
It was the first business to sell furniture made by Naperville-based Kroehler Manufacturing Co., according to store’s 2024 city landmark application. Peter Kroehler learned the ins-and-outs of the furniture business through Long’s workshop, eventually launching his own company.
“(We also) sold Tell City, which was a very famous manufacturer for furniture, which now no longer exists,” Kunsch, 82, said. “A friend of mine — I was telling her that the furniture store was up for sale and she’s the same age as I am … and she said, ‘Oh my goodness, I have end tables and I have mahogany tables and a coffee table from there that I bought when I was first married.’”
While the furniture store is soon to say goodbye to the city, the Civil War-era building will remain a downtown fixture because of its landmark status. That means the street-facing facades cannot be changed although some features, like the second- and third-story windows bricked over by Owen Beidelman, could be restored.
“(The new owner) would probably have to go to the Historic Preservation Commission, but everybody wants those windows restored,” said Jane Burke, secretary of Naperville Preservation Inc. “When we were in front of city council getting final approval for landmarking, that was their question, ‘Are you going to restore the windows?’”
Heitmanek said she is not sure what comes next for her family but she wants the community to know one thing: they cannot thank residents enough for their support over the years.
“I just have so much pride,” she said. “People really, really loved having this business on this corner in downtown Naperville, and that’s such a good feeling.”
cstein@chicagotribune.com
