NAPERVILLE, Illinois – Illinois’ fourth-largest city just designated a family-owned furniture store as its first historic landmark.

Founded in 1861, Beidelman Furniture is the oldest business in DuPage County and probably the oldest furniture store in all of Illinois. The company is named after Oliver Beidelman, who built the three-story red brick building in 1928 where the store still stands today.

It has been family owned since the 1860s and is now run by Beidelman’s great-granddaughter Katy Heitmanek in the fifth generation.

“Our building has become sort of an icon,” she said. “Until they built a Barnes & Noble, it was the only three-story building in town. It’s a gated building. We’re at the point where I personally want to keep the building at all costs. And this historic preservation helps.”

The building is described as Gothic in style and features the first elevator in Naperville. Since it once housed a funeral home, old stained glass windows can be seen on one side. The site also includes a workshop where industry pioneer Peter Kroehler learned the furniture business (Kroehler later founded Kroehler Manufacturing, Naperville’s largest employer for decades and once the largest furniture manufacturer in the country). Both buildings have been designated historic.

Heitmanek said the Naperville Historic Preservation Commission suggested the family apply for historic preservation because other older buildings in the city had been purchased by private owners and then demolished.

Her desire to have the building listed as historic is purely sentimental, she said, but there are also financial benefits.

“We’ve seen steady property tax increases, and those could be frozen if we get the protection,” she said. “We could get help with other things, too. For example, if we wanted to make our windows more historically accurate, we could get some tax credits.”

The full interview with Katy Heitmanek can be found here.

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