Mundelein makes last stand on Central Hotel

The mid-morning quiet on North Seymour Avenue belies a bustling past, when tourists seeking relaxation at Diamond Lake took the train to Mundelein, and farmers would send their grain and milk off to market.

Many visitors no doubt stayed at the Central Hotel. Built in 1896, it is still standing at what for generations had been the main commercial district across from the railroad depot. Small but quaint, it was far from the most elegant hotel of the era when the town was known for a short time as Holcomb.

But nostalgia is all that's been left for decades now. While it could have been an asset as the area was revitalized, the old hotel may be too far gone for restoration. And after decades of trying to save the building, village officials want the eyesore to disappear.

Village officials have been unable to make contact with the building's owner to work on a "more user-friendly" option, said Mike Flynn, assistant village manager. Now, it is taking "a more aggressive stance."

A legal notice lists 32 problems, including rotted floors and joists, water damage, and a sagging roof, that must be made safe by about Aug. 9. If the work isn't done, the village will seek a court order to have the building at 534 N. Seymour demolished.

Through the years the village has declared the hotel a public nuisance, and even won a judgment against a former tenant. It was declared unfit for habitation in 2003 and has been vacant since.

"When I first got here in the late '80s, the building was in really bad disrepair. It was overcrowded and had been chopped up illegally," Flynn said.

Repairs were sometimes made, but they never seemed to last.

"The last time we were serious, too," Flynn said. "But all we were trying to do was get the guy to fix it."

But even in the tatters of recent years, one still gets the sense of horses hitched to a post out front as guests on the covered porch watch the crowds go about their business along the dirt street.

At first the Central Hotel operated a livery and stables. By 1925, a fire insurance map showed the two-story building had been converted to dwellings and a restaurant.

In the mid-1940s, it was purchased by Dwight and Gladys Dolph, most likely as an investment.

"There were two (rental) apartments upstairs but the first floor was my family's residence," recalls Dwight's son, Mike. "My father owned an insurance business and had an office in one of the rooms."

After returning from World War II, Mike Dolph said he lived in the upstairs apartment until 1953, when he and his wife, Dorothy, moved to a new home.

Those were the golden years of Seymour Avenue, before malls took the place of downtown for many shoppers.

The building remained in good shape, Dolph says, until he sold it in 1972 as part of his mother's estate. He doesn't recall who bought it. And that's where details become problematic for the village.

The last sale was in 1976, says Charles Smith, one of the village's attorneys. The owner was listed then and now as Eleanor Schiessle of Park Ridge, according to the Lake County clerk's office.

"The property is owned in a land trust," Smith said. "There's no trustee anybody can locate. Various persons over the years have paid the taxes. Eleanor Schiessle, I suspect, is long since dead."

The legal notice lists five owners or lien holders. Topping the list is Michael H. Schiessle, but he, too, has been elusive, Smith and Flynn agree.

"It sounds like it shouldn't be able to happen, but if someone doesn't want to be found, they don't have to be," Flynn said.

"It's very unusual," Smith said. "In this particular case that person just doesn't respond."

Flynn agrees it would be "very cool" if the building were restored. But it's become a liability.

Mike Dolph, a life-long Mundelein resident, doesn't have any grand expectations about the old Central Hotel.

"If this one goes, it will be the first one of the homes I've lived in to be gone," he said.