Restoration is set to resume on the historic Citizens State Bank building at 1124-1126 Second St. in downtown Perry now that the property has new owners in Emily and Dan Leslie of rural Perry.
“After month and months of praying and working with local contractors, the work can finally begin,” Emily Leslie said Friday. “We officially closed on the Citizens State Bank building today.”
Leslie said it was too early to disclose what businesses will be moving into the 8,000-square-foot landmark, built in 1903 and bought in 2013 by the noted Des Moines architect Kirk Blunck, whose sudden death in January stalled work on the property.
Leslie did say the ground floor will be used as exhibition space during the Art on the Prairie event Nov. 12-13.
“We have big plans for the building,” she said, “and renovation starts this weekend. We are trying to use all local contractors to keep business moving in Perry.”
A Boone native, Emily Leslie attended college at Buena Vista University, where she met Dan, who hails from southeast Iowa. After marrying and starting their family in Des Moines, they began to yearn for a more rural lifestyle.
“Finally one day, we decided it was time to move to a smaller community to raise our family,” she said. “We put our house on the market thinking it wouldn’t sell, and seven days later it sold. Panic! We started looking, with the help of our realtor, and found the perfect home just south of Perry.”
The Leslies moved here about two years ago and now homeschool their three children, Taylor, 9, Gavin, 7, and Brendan, 5. Rory. The family also includes “two dogs, loads of outdoor farm cats, and 17 hens,” she said.
The Leslies soon became fond of Perry’s historic downtown.
“Shortly after we moved to Perry, we fell in love with the historic buildings on Second Street,” Emily Leslie said. “Not knowing a soul, we loved the feel of downtown Perry and said, Let’s do it.”
They made their first inquiries about the Citizens State Bank building. But fondness is one thing and investment another. What would prompt a young family to buy a charming, old, special-needs building in downtown Perry?
“We get asked that question weekly,” Leslie said. “My husband and I wanted to invest in a project that would allow our children to learn and appreciate hard work and commitment and that would also inspire others to lift up their community. We feel that restoring this building will help bring life to the historic downtown Perry.”
The corner commercial lot certainly has its history. S. S. Dillenbeck bought the Citizens State Bank in Perry in 1898, according to the Rand McNally Bankers’ Monthly of that year, but the Dillenbeck building, as it is sometimes called, which today stands at Second and Warford streets, was not built until 1903, according to county records.
More recently, Haaland Financial Services operated out of the Citizens State Bank building until last year, when the pace of Blunck’s renovations slowed and then stopped, and Haaland moved its offices to 902 First Ave. in Perry.
The Dillenbeck building was the subject of an Iowa State University art class in 2013 and served as a venue for Art on the Prairie exhibitors in 2013 and 2014, but it was not among the art spaces in last year’s festival, which draws thousands of art-loving tourists to Perry’s downtown cultural district annually.
Leslie is eager to put the building back in circulation and is thankful for the help they have gotten from the Perry locals.
“We have been so supported by the community and the great people in Perry,” she said. “So many people have encouraged us along this journey and pointed us to their personal contacts, which has been such a blessing.”
