Mayfair Lumber Closing

The family-owned Mayfair Lumber is closing after operating on a six-acre site at 4825 W. Lawrence Ave. for 82 years.

Mayfair Lumber is among the thousands of lumber yards which have closed in recent years due to the sharp decline in new construction. “There’s no home building. It’s almost the non-existence of new homes,” said Chip Koenen, whose grandfather John in the late 1920s purchased the Pennington lumber company and renamed it Mayfair.

The site includes a saw mill and a staining shed, which was built in the late 1950s. “We were one of the first to offer the pre-staining of cedar. All of the homes were built with cedar then,” said David Koenen, who along with his brother Chris followed their father Len Koenen Jr. into the family business.

At its peak, Mayfair had about 50 employees and a dozen delivery trucks, and until last year, train cars of lumber would enter the yard from a spur off a Union Pacific Railroad line which runs along the east side of the property. “We once had about 750 train cars of lumber in a year. That’s an almost three a day,” David Keonen said. Mayfair is now the last stop along the railroad line, which to the north is being converted into a bike trail.

Chip Koenen remembers the late 1980s as the busiest times for the lumber yard. “We are a true lumber yard. There aren’t many of these out there anymore,” he said.

A date has not been set for the final day of operations at Mayfair. “We will be here for a few more months until we sell out our inventory,” said David Koenen.

Family members said that the land has not been put up for sale and that they are exploring their options as to the property’s future. “Lumber yards have always been easy targets for developers,” David Koenen said. “I can’t tell you how many times over the years people come in here in here wanting our land.”

The site, whose west end is adjacent to a Metra railroad line, includes 400 feet of frontage on Lawrence and is zoned M1-1 for manufacturing uses. The triangular-shaped parcel narrows sharply as it approaches Wilson Avenue to the south. A storage yard which is not owned by Mayfair Lumber and was once used by the former Miller Brothers Lumber is located just to the north of the city’s Mayfair Pumping Station, 4850 W. Wilson Ave.

About 5 years ago Concord Homes built a complex consisting of rowhouses and single-family homes on a former industrial site which is located just to the west of the Mayfair yard.

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