Monday, February 1, 2010

John Behmiller Building, 1520 Miner

The Behmiller Building is one of the most attractive buildings downtown. Built in 1897, it is the only example of Queen Anne architecture downtown, with distinctive twin oriel (bay) windows. It seems to use the same brick, name plaque, and limestone banding courses as the C.W.M. Brown Building next door, suggesting it was probably designed by the same builder/architect, believed to be Frank Cook. There is a cornerstone, but it is now too weathered to read. From what I've been able to discover, it was originally the Behmiller Grocery store, although it became (briefly) Brown's shortly thereafter.
 
At some point, probably the 1950s, it was "modernized" with the addition of a permanent wedge-shaped canopy and new storefronts, with Lannon Stone below. While these aren't terrible and don't detract too much from the building, they do obscure some of its detail.
This photo shows the now-hidden base of the oriel windows and the glassy storefronts. Surprisingly, the building also had storefronts in the basement, with a stair going down. (What an awful-looking tree in this photo!) The building today is not too far off from the original. The biggest difference is the now-missing, unusual parapet at the roofline, which contributed to the "peaky" pattern of this end of the block.
Miner & Pearson - Hoffman Card
Here are some of the businesses that occupied the Behmiller Building:
1518

1937 - Singer Sewing Machine Store
1954-(1979) - Sebastian Real Estate
(1984) - Louis Delegge American Family Insurance
1987-1990 - Susie Software
1993 - The Clock Doctor
Complete Business Center
John's Shoe Repair

1520

1935?-1950 - Square Deal Shoe Store
1956 - Holmes Motor
1959 - Des Plaines Dental Laboratory
Piggy's Market
1982 - Lee Camera
Posted by BW Des Plaines at 2/01/2010 11:15:00 AM

2 comments:

  1. Ron Sebastian has the following information and a correction:

    "Thanks for the link to the Behmiller building. My uncle Jim married a Behmiller. We moved to the apartment above 1520 Miner (Piggy's Meat Market) in 1953. My Dad started his business in the front of the apartment and we lived in the back. A few years later he moved his business downstairs to 1518 Miner when the diner there closed. I think Berquist TV repair was in the basement at that time. The facade was remodeled in the late fifites and my dad then purchased the building from my Aunt Helen (a Behmiller). My Dad retired in 1983 and leased out the space to Louis Del Legge the insurance guy. He sold the building about ten years later to the shoe repair guy. In over 100 years the building has only had three owners.
    There is one slight correction. My fathers business was not called Sebastian /Kole Realty. He used his full name "Wm B. Sebastian Real Estate" because his brother Joe was in the real estate business in Park Ridge, under the name "Sebastian and Co". Additionally, Kole Real Estae was just west of Lee Street and was never associated with my Dads business.
    History lesson over.
    Ron "

    Ron is still in town, with Des Plaines Hobbies having been a Des Plaines fixture for 25+ years and currently open in the Richard's Menswear building south of Jewel.

    Thanks for posting,
    Mike Skibbe
    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Mike. I got the Kole thing from this December 10, 1975 article: http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/8350/19751210kole1518miner.jpg

    That was the only place it appeared; it may have just been bad information fed to the press.
    ReplyDelete

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