| Year(s) Listed: • 2021 |
| City/Town: • Lawrence |
| Location Class: • Commercial |
| Built: N/A | Year Saved: 2020 |
| Historic Designation: • National Register of Historic Places |
| Awards: • Merit Award |
| Contributor: Kansas Preservation Alliance |
Following the death of Helmer Klock, R.M. Reeves, a well-known local grocer, purchased the property and operated the store as Reeves Grocery until 1959. After Reeves Grocery, the store was converted by Ed Elam to a laundry facility for the Independent Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Company. Elam’s company had been founded in Lawrence in 1930, and it was quite a significant enterprise. During its time as Independent Laundry, the building underwent several modifications that reflect the trend of mid-century modernization and industry changes that took place throughout the 1960s. The west portion of the building continued as a self-service laundry until the summer of 2018 when it was purchased by Brad Ziegler and rehabilitated in 2020. The character of the Klock’s Grocery & Independent Laundry is preserved through its interior configuration which pays homage to its historic configuration and its rehabilitated historic materials such as the ceiling’s pressed tin panels. The building is currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The building has been rehabilitated for a new commercial use as a restaurant. The building has been analyzed to configure the restaurant in such a way to show deference to both historical uses. The areas that were public for both the grocery and laundromat are still the public areas of the restaurant, and the “back-of-house” areas are now used as the restaurant’s kitchen. All existing materials that were able to be retained were incorporated into the rehabilitation. Visible historic materials that were deteriorated beyond usability were replaced with matching-in-kind materials.