South Main Street, like North Main, has lost its share of old mansion homes. The Ensenberger home, which stood at 902 South Main featured a wrap around porch and a hexagonal turret. The home that sits t the same address today is eerily similar, but the bays on the north side are distinctly different and the northwest corner is completely altered.
Stripped of the porch that wrapped around the corner, and the additional roofline of the porch, this home is less interesting for the lack of these charming features. The home that remains is a drastic remodel that was completed at the direction of Gustave Ensenberger Jr. in 1929. At that time the home was divided into four apartments and given a brick veneer.
Gustave A Ensenberger began his retail empire with a store called "The Beehive" in 1879. The Ensenberger family came to Bloomington, at the urging of Herman Schroeder, from Indiana in 1868. The Beehive store began on a small scale but prospered so well that by 1886 Gustave moved his store to Center Street just west of the courthouse into the Harwood building, which he later expanded and heightened. That building was replaced in 1926 when the three sons of Gustave built a modern new seven story building for the Ensenberger furniture store.
In 1914 Gustave Ensenberger had a breakdown and incorporated his business so that his sons could run the business. He died three years later and his sons continued the business, building the store that we now know as a narchitectural landmark in downtown Bloomington.