Shiffler Builders has been a fixture in Naperville for 113 years.
This year was its last.
The longstanding family-run remodeling firm is closing. Not for lack of work or regard but of their own accord, owner Steve Shiffler said.
“The timing is right,” he said. “We’ve been doing really well. I wouldn’t have wanted to go out in a recession when times were hard or something like that. … We wanted to do it on our own terms.”
While Shiffler Builders’ official last day will be Dec. 31, front of house work is “pretty much tied up,” Shiffler said.
“There are a couple minor things, but all of my guys have gone on to other jobs,” he said. “We’re wrapped up. We’re not taking any more projects.”
All that’s left is clearing out the firm’s 25 North Ave. office, which — home to Shiffler Builders since the 1940s — is a fixture in itself.
Nods to the business’ more than century-long lifespan, from dated photos to old advertisements, adorn the wall space. Time-worn hand tools double as decor and faded plat maps serve as wallpaper. Even decades-old receipts are posted as mementos.
Scanning the office Wednesday, Shiffler, 67, said, “There’s a lot to go through. I mean, there are some materials and tools here that are older than I am. Just from my tenure, I’m finding materials from jobs 40 years ago. You know, I’ll recognize the names.”
Shiffler has been at the helm of Shiffler Builders since the early ’80s. Before him, the firm was in his father’s hands. Before that, his grandfather’s.
In all, the Shiffler legacy goes back four generations.
Shiffler’s great-grandfather, Charles, founded the business in 1910. Originally, the venture focused on repairing barns and farm buildings for local families, but as Naperville started to expand, so did the company. Charles’ sons joined the operation, though stepping away at times for deployment amid World War I and World War II.
When suburban growth surged in the 1950s, Shiffler Builders took advantage, shifting its focus to new homebuilding and subdivision development. By the mid-1970s, the company had developed four subdivisions for Naperville.
When times and needs changed again, Shiffler Builder shifted attention back to remodeling.
“The only constant is change,” Shiffler said. “We were always doing different things.”
The business’ adaptability is what gave it resolve, he said.
“(The company) spans two World Wars, the Korean War, the Great Depression, the Great Recession. We’ve weathered everything,” he said. “And we’ve always been here, in Naperville.”
Shiffler recalled taking on jobs, just part time to start, through high school and in between terms at North Central College. He briefly pursued photography as a career but ultimately his passions lied with the family business.
“I loved working with my hands,” he said. “I loved meeting with people and solving their concerns and being creative.”
After a while, the decades added up. About a year and a half ago, Shiffler and his wife, Nancy, started to consider that maybe the business was nearing its end.
“I’ve always enjoyed it,” he said. “But my wife and I hoped to hit that sweet spot where we could close the business and end the responsibilities. It has a lot of responsibilities (that) don’t go away. You can take a vacation, but when you come back, it’s all there.
“Where we are in our lives (now), we just knew.”
Shiffler knew, too, that phasing out the business under his ownership was always a matter of when, not if. While his children helped out here and there, “it wasn’t going to work out for one of them to take over,” he said.
“Someone has to have that passion. … It was mine. And it was my father’s. But it just wasn’t theirs,” he said.
Preferring passion-driven work over continuing, just for the sake of continuing, Shiffler emphasized that “it’s all good.”
Selling to someone outside the family was a similar moot point.
“We’ve run it our way, with certain parameters of honesty and craftsmanship for so long,” Shiffler said. “I didn’t want to put that into anyone else’s hands.”
