Revamped downtown begins to emerge in Lisle

Lisle's Main Street chrysalis soon will emerge as a beautiful downtown butterfly.

After a couple-year siege of barricades and construction, downtown businesses are poised to dust themselves off and swing open their doors to shoppers.

Three Lisle businesses that have a foothold in Lisle history have seen plenty of changes from their vantage point on Main Street.

Leo's Cleaners at 4752 Main St. started in business 61 years ago across from the train depot on Burlington Avenue. Leo Callan and his wife, June, began the family business in 1947 delivering clean clothes along gravel roads in a red Ford truck. In 1955, the business moved to its present location.

Callan also played a role in the growing community serving as a volunteer fireman, Lisle trustee, chairman of the streets department and fire commissioner.

Along Main Street, his business prospered. It doubled in size in 1968 when it added its own processing plant. Two additions toward the back of the building and a recent new front facade brought the building into the 21st century.

For more than 20 years now, the couple's son, Dennis Callan, has owned and operated his family business along with store manager Steve Saul.

"We are proud that Consumer Checkbook rated the business best in DuPage County and second in the Chicagoland area," Saul said.

Even with changes, the Lisle Main Street fixture has not changed its dedication to customer satisfaction and commitment to personal service. The business does minor alterations and specializes in formal, leather, suede and trim garments, Saul said.

For drapery, it does a perfect pleat cleaning process and offers a takedown and rehang service in customers' homes.

Each fall, the store collects and cleans hundreds of donated coats and jackets for the Sharing Connections annual charitable coat drive that serves those in need.

The Book Nook, at 4738 Main St., is another mainstay of Lisle history. The store opened 70 years ago as a seven-stool diner with a painted white exterior and a castlelike battlement top.

Lisle contractor Andy Yender added eight feet to the front of the store in 1946 to bring it up to the sidewalk. That is when Elmer Melton, together with his brother Art Melton and sister-in-law Rose (Chonko) Melton, ran a small cafe.

When the men's mother, Verna Melton, took over the business, she opened the Book Nook together with her daughter, Helen. When George Orina owned the store he had three interior walls lined with paperback books.

The next owners, Jerry and Suzan Waskelis, ran the store for 24 years. They were careful to maintain the shop's small-town charm. John and Pat Reeder owned the store for five years, before selling it in April 2007 to the current owners, lifelong Lisle residents Kitty and Scott Murphy.

Kitty preserves the store's rich history with a display of vintage photos above her 15-foot custom-built candy counter.

"I remember coming here with my best friend with one penny and we each got a piece of candy," she said.

Along with a wide variety of candy, cards and roughly 2,000 magazines, the store stocks Don's Espresso and premium Peterson's ice cream. A small seating area invites patrons to sit for a spell.

"My dream for this place is to make the store a destination in downtown Lisle where people come to hang out," Murphy said. "We hope to build a back entrance and add two public bathrooms along with a large back deck. We would like to bring in bands on the weekend."

Murphy said the store occupies only the front half of the property so a deck could be quite large. Although the store is now called "The Nook," she is saving an original Book Nook sign to hang on the back deck.

Bruce's Home Center, at 4715 Main St., was once an eye-catching 4-acre peony patch owned by Frank and Margaret Haumesser. Rows of red, pink and white flowers grew on the corner of Main Street and Ogden Avenue in the 1930s and '40s. Realtor Walter Jahnke bought the property and sold it in 1965 to Barry Crawley, a Downers Grove developer, who built the current shopping center.

The largest store in the strip housed an A&P Grocery. George and Grace Zuraitis owned the business from 1984 to 1991 as a hardware store they named Z's. Bruce Francis is the current owner of the expanded 12,000-square-foot hardware and home retail space.

Cheryl Van Houghton, the store's general manager, reflects the personal service the store takes pride in offering its customers. There seems to be no home improvement question that can't be answered.

"Right now we've added a lot more products for do-it-yourselfers in this tight economy," Van Houghton said. "Whether it is gardening needs, fertilizers or painting, all of our employees know just about everything about our products."

Van Houghton said the store will search out unusual products for a consumer. It also repairs and cuts windows and screens, does pipe threading, cuts glass and Plexiglas, and is a UPS shipping store.

Being part of the community, the store offers a senior discount, recycles batteries and is a collection site for Lions eyeglass recycling.

Like many of the Lisle downtown stores, these three businesses know the names of their regular customers. It's the kind of hometown charm that makes Lisle special.