Fellenz Architectural Antiques is a treasure hunt.
By Kristina Sauerwein
Photography by Frank Di Piazza
The adventure begins in the Central West End. You know the store is near Café Balaban. You pass several antique stores that fool you into thinking you’ve found it. But you walk right past it. You do an about-face and realize you were standing next to it.
The store’s industrial facade gives little indication it is open for business—except for a camouflaged sign bearing the store’s name.
You think locating the place is the hardest part of the hunt. Then you step inside the warehouse. It’s dusty, musty and chilly enough that owner Bill Fellenz is wearing a jacket when, outside, it’s 80 degrees. Victorian mantels, century-old doors, art glass windows, ornate spindles and mysterious but beautiful architectural artifacts tower along walls and in dark piles, rising to the rafters in the old building that once served as a car dealership. Where are the doors?
If only you had a flashlight.
“I got some right here [10 to be exact],” Fellenz says, leading an impromptu expedition into the store’s cobwebbed nooks and crannies.
You explore the door section: A 1905 five-panel door in pine costs $40; a pair of European double front doors with an iron inset, $1,800; and a pair of tall Victorian storm doors, $2,800.
“Doors are one of our most popular items,” says Fellenz, who once shipped 1,243 doors in one day to New Orleans.
In another area, you discover a worn leaded glass window, $25; a combination art and beveled glass transom window, $950; and a set of four 6-foot-tall Art Nouveau windows, $2,400.
Next, Fellenz guides you through the mantels, unearthing gems such as a 130-year-old cypress mantel from New Orleans for $450 and an English double mantel in oak, ornamented with lionhead and griffin carvings, for $7,900. Fellenz then regales you with a tale of a major sale: a 13-foot Victorian mantel in walnut sold for $20,000 to a local designer whose client, living in Vail, Colo., approved the purchase after seeing the mantel in a photograph.
Your journey uncovers other treasures: $1 for a splintered wooden door plaque, $350 for an iron garden gate from New York and $795 for a 100-year-old bronze cherub head.
You understand why legions of longtime customers—antique dealers, designers, architects, rehabbers, artists and collectors—have relied on Fellenz Architectural Antiques since it opened in 1961 and why they trust Fellenz, 61, who scours the Midwest for architectural remnants.
“You never know what you’ll find,” Fellenz says. “It’s a treasure hunt.”
where is it?
Fellenz Architectural Antiques
439 N. Euclid
314-367-0214
Hours: Mon–Sat 8 a.m.–3 p.m.
