N.V. Beens' Woninginrichting-Maatschappij
In 1926 the firm placed an advertisement in the Rotterdam address book, and its four lines give the whole shape of the business. Showrooms on the Coolsingel. An office and forwarding department on the Nieuwe Kerkstraat. And third on the list, Fabrieken: Rochussenstraat 169, the works the firm had taken on from the men who built them .
So the corner counted as one premises of three, under its single street number (the address books split it into lettered units, as shown below): the works, not the public showroom. How the firm laid out an advertisement like this, with its house name, its typeface and its boast of three premises, is followed up in . Seen whole, two of the firm's three premises stood somewhere other than the works whose story this is.
A director, three supervisors and half a million guilders
The company was born as the war ended. N.V. Beens' Woninginrichting-Maatschappij was incorporated in 1918, and the Bijvoegsel to the Staatscourant reported it. It was a modest limited company with one man in charge. H. P. Beens, styled koopman, a merchant, formed the whole directie. Above him sat three commissarissen, the supervisory board. They were A. Henkemans of The Hague, mr. W. F. C. Baars of Rotterdam and J. P. J. Asselbergs Czoon of Bergen-op-Zoom. The authorised capital was f500,000, in ten series of f50,000. Only the first three series were placed and paid up, in bearer shares of f1,000. On paper, then, the firm could raise more than three times the capital it actually paid up.
> Government Gazette No. 165 contains the Royally-approved deeds of incorporation of the limited companies: > 1. Shipping Company "Maria", here. Capital ƒ1,000 in 10 shares, placed and paid up. Director J. W. Nefkens, shipowner and merchant here. > 2. N.V. Beens' Home-Furnishing Company, here, capital ƒ500,000, divided into 10 series of ƒ50,000 each, of which the first three are wholly placed and paid up. The shares are each of ƒ1,000, are paid up in full on issue and are to bearer. Director H. P. Beens, merchant here. Supervisory directors: A. Henkemans, director of the limited company Nationaal Grondbezit, at The Hague; mr. W. F. C. Baars, advocate and procurator, at Rotterdam; and J. P. J. Asselbergs Czoon, at Bergen-op-Zoom.
At first the company traded well. Its 1920 annual report, printed in De Maasbode, spoke of a favourable first year and a full order book, and proposed a ten per cent dividend on the shares.
The Rotterdam commercial register entered the same works under a second, plainer name, Woninginrichting Fred. J. Beens. The two Beens who ran the company were brothers, Hermanus Petrus (born 1895) and Fredericus Johannes (born 1893). Both were born at Haarlem two years apart, and both married there within a year of each other. Their lives after the firm have . Here they appear as a director and a signatory, and the company takes centre stage.
Three addresses, and the works among them
Over these years the showroom moved along the Coolsingel. It opened in April 1918 at Coolsingel 56, had taken no. 49 by 1922 and had reached no. 103 by the end of 1923. It stayed at 103 (once printed 102) until the wind-down. A clearance notice of December 1923 shows both ends of the business in a single advertisement: the Coolsingel showroom at the top, Fabrieken Rochussenstraat 169 at the foot .
> CLEARANCE SALE > N.V. BEEN'S FURNISHING COMPANY > COOLSINGEL 103. TELEPHONE 27 and 47 > FACTORIES: ROCHUSSE(N)STRAAT 169. [street misprinted in the original] > On 15 January next our stores will close for internal rebuilding, in connection with the addition of a Carpets and Furnishing-fabrics department. > After about 14 days, reopening and exhibition of a collection such as never seen before in Holland — SEE OUR FURTHER NOTICES!! > For lack of space we shall, during December, clear about 70 complete suites — dining-, living-, bed- and gentlemen's rooms, salon, etc. — far below cost price. > From 3 to 15 January, clearance of remnant furniture and coupon (fabric) offcuts. SEE OUR WINDOW. > Now on display: a WALNUT-BURR SALON SUITE [...] from f 1425 for f 975.
In 1918 the firm hung pictures upstairs at the first of those addresses, Coolsingel 56, a story told in . Coolsingel 49 was more than a shop. By September 1922 a showroom advertisement printed three firms together: Beens itself, Kam & Van Rhijn, and Van Duffelen & Pelt, the firm that had built the corner. The joint entry carried Van Duffelen & Pelt's old Rochussenstraat telephone number, 47. The advertisement shows a shared showroom; it says nothing about the legal terms of any merger or absorption.
That one line links two eras. The firm that laid the works' first stone in 1899 and the firm that ran them in 1922 appear in the same showroom advertisement. Between them stands a single telephone number, the one that passes through . The Schiedam house drawn into the group has .
Through the first half of the decade the works ran as a going factory. The earliest dated notice is an advertisement of January 1921 that gives its address as Fabriek Rochussenstraat 169 .
Four years later the firm was still claiming the address in print, setting the factory beside the Coolsingel showroom in a spring sale advertisement of April 1925.
In between, it advertised more than once for hands at the 169 addresses, keeping the benches filled on paper; lists every one of those notices. The 1926 advertisement then sets out who did what within the family. H. P. Beens is directeur at the Coolsingel showrooms. F. J. Beens, the procuratiehouder or authorised signatory, is listed at the works. The younger brother, H. P., directed the showrooms downtown; the elder, F. J., signed for the factory.
Within the corner the firm moved between the lettered units from year to year. In the mid-1920s the address books put the works at 169d and F. J. Beens, the signatory, next door at 169a. By 1927 the entries had shifted again, with the factory at 169b and F. J. Beens at 169c. follows the lettered occupancy in full.
One more address comes from the labour record rather than the advertisements. In November 1920 the firm's upholsterers were found at Westersingel 68 working until eleven at night, in breach of the new eight-hour day, and the labour inspectorate logged eight violations. The firm also kept the trade's works holiday in August 1918, when it was advertising from Coolsingel 56 and did not yet hold the corner, and it was struck along with the trade in 1923 . All of this belongs to .
What it made
The works were a furniture factory that also fitted out other people's rooms, and for a few years they did so for some of the city's grander interiors. In 1919 the firm furnished Restaurant Hasenkamp in carved oak, in a white-and-soft-red Louis-Seize.
RESTAURANT HASENKAMP. Our city has been enriched by yet another distinguished restaurant, what one calls a “Maison de premier ordre”, namely Hasenkamp. The gentlemen partners of the traditionally so favourably known Huize Hasenkamp, Botersloot, considered the upper floors of their spacious premises on Keizerstraat to be very suitable for outfitting as a restaurant. And in this plan, thanks to the expert guidance of the architect J. v. Teefelen, they have succeeded brilliantly. A very welcoming, warmly coloured staircase leads guests to the restaurant floors. First, however, let us open for you what lies immediately on the right-hand side, the Salon Louis XVI, the large dining hall on the first floor. Very chic and stylishly panelled by the firm N. V. Been’s Woninginrichting. Modern and handsomely executed in carved oak with red leather chair upholstery. A fine mantelpiece with a bright gold frame. In this corner, a small podium where a distinguished string ensemble can gather around the piano. A dining room that will certainly be able to meet the very highest standards, both through the pleasant tone of its decoration and through its intimate proportions. An easy staircase, warmly covered with red carpet runners, leads us to the second floor, where several smaller salons, which can nevertheless be combined into one large hall, entice one to hold dinners for small parties. These salons have likewise been neatly panelled and upholstered in Louis-Seize by N. V. Been’s Woninginrichting, in white and soft red, while yet another salon is kept in tones of white and green. On the third floor are the modernly equipped kitchens, from where all orders are directed via two lifts to the service rooms. From the basement as well, the various floors as well as the public can be conveyed by lift to the kitchens. The gentlemen partners of the new “Restaurant Hasenkamp”, which will soon gain great popularity, have been able to assemble a staff from the Palace-Hotel in Scheveningen, which provides visitors with a guarantee that both service and dishes will be exceptionally well cared for. Restaurant Hasenkamp will undoubtedly become a distinguished attraction of Rotterdam.
In 1921 it supplied the new furnishing for the Cinema Palace. The modern redesign was by a Rotterdam architect whom the review names (the verified reading of the page gives den heer J. A. van der Vlugt), working with the decorative artists Jaap and Jan Gidding. The Maasbode review named Beens for the furnishing and made plain to a Rotterdam reader what that name meant.
CINEMA PALACE. The well-known Cinema Palace on the Coolsingel (also situated there) has—something of which it may be proud—managed to don a new attire in less than 18 days. Mr. Alexander Jaap v. Gils has deemed it necessary to have the former fairground gaudiness that disfigured the interior of his theatre completely removed, and to have the auditorium, now considerably enlarged, furnished more according to modern views following plans by the skilled Rotterdam architect Mr. J. A. van der Vlugt and the well-known decorative artists Jaap and Jan Gidding. In work that is decoratively as clever as it is stunningly modern, one immediately recognizes these two Rotterdam masters. The new furnishings were provided by N. V. Beens’ Woning-inrichting, and this alone says enough to know that everything will be exceedingly comfortable. Fitting wonderfully into the surprising wall decoration are the cleverly conceived wall lamps with coloured glass, also based on designs by Mr. v. d. Vlugt. The electrical installation, which lends a festive glow to the entire interior, was carried out by Cinema Palace’s own chief technician, Mr. J. H. Dorré. In its latest transformation, the Cinema Palace now ranks among the characteristically attractive, intimate theatres of Rotterdam. This evening’s opening performance will be introduced with the overture „de Bruiloft van Figaro”, for which kapelmeester C. G. Dudden arranged the fine Mozart music.
The same year it was among the suppliers named for the Ooster-Theater. In 1926 it furnished the rebuilt Tivoli in teak panelling and red moquette, with decorative painting by Gidding en Tuinenburg: the Gidding brothers on a second Beens commission, five years after the Cinema Palace.
Rotterdamsch Nieuwsblad, 30 December 1926, "The renewed Tivoli theatre": a description of the rebuilt Tivoli — teak panelling, red moquette carpeting, redesigned public rooms — naming the tradesmen who carried out the work: decorative painting by the firm Gidding en Tuinenburg, and upholstery and furnishing by "A. Been's Woninginrichting."
It won a gold-medal diploma at the 1920 exhibition Het Huis en zijn Inrichting, and Queen Wilhelmina looked over its stand at the 1919 Utrecht fair.
The firm's standing showed beyond the shop floor too. In December 1922 H. P. Beens founded and ran a relief committee for famine-struck Vienna, Beens' Comité voor noodlijdend Weenen. It announced a lottery of twenty-five thousand tickets and displayed the prizes, f50,000 worth bought in Vienna, at the Coolsingel. By early January the committee had already sent ten thousand guilders to Vienna, ahead of its postponed draw of 22 January 1923, which then sold poorly. The full venture belongs to .
> MISCELLANEOUS NEWS. > > A LOTTERY FOR VIENNA. > > Much has already been done by the Dutch for the destitute of Vienna, but despite all that help there remain > categories in the bitterest need. Among those categories are the intellectuals and those who must make do on > a pension. > > Mr H. P. Beens, director of the N.V. Beens' Home Furnishing Company [Woninginrichting Maatschappij] at > Rotterdam, was on his most recent business journeys to Vienna so struck by the misery of these people that > he now wishes to try to help them. For this purpose the Beens' Committee for Destitute Vienna [Beens' Comité > voor noodlijdend Weenen] has been founded, which seeks to raise money by issuing lottery tickets. In this > lottery 25,000 tickets are issued at 5 guilders apiece. The proceeds from this therefore amount to 125,000 > guilders. For 50,000 guilders various prizes have been bought in Vienna. These prizes consist of splendid > dining-room, drawing-room and bedroom suites of furniture, paintings, Persian carpets, table lamps [reading > lamps/"schemerlampen"], club armchairs, vases, miniatures, cushions, table covers ["tafelkloedjes" — as > printed; presumably "tafelkleedjes"], etc. Owing to the favourable time at which they were bought, the prizes > are worth far more than what was paid for them. The prizes are exhibited at Rotterdam at the N.V. Beens' > Woninginrichting Mij., Coolsingel 19; at Amsterdam at the N.V. de Phoenix, Damrak 76; and at The Hague at > H. T. L. Coolwijk. The drawing will take place before Christmas.
One private order survives outside the press, as a line in a finding aid. In the De Crane family archive at the Zeeuws Archief, a catalogue entry describes a 1926 letter from the firm. According to the catalogue, the letter confirms an order for five armchairs and a table, with a drawing. The letter has not been digitised, and we have not read it. It records a commission placed with the firm, but the entry does not say whether the pieces were made at the Rochussenstraat works or a Coolsingel showroom, and it does not identify the customer further. The letter survives only in the De Crane family's archive, and it is worth having even at one remove.
The German debt
A dispute over a debt in German marks reached a Rotterdam courtroom, and the part the gazette reports runs the other way from a firm simply being dunned by a foreign creditor. Markgraf & Tau of Berlin had sued the company, and Beens counterclaimed. The print sets out that counterclaim under the headnote Voldoening van een schuld uitgedrukt in gedeprecieerde valuta, the payment of a debt expressed in a depreciated currency. Beens itself held a mark claim against Markgraf & Tau dating from January 1922. It asked the court to make the Berliners pay not in marks, by then worthless, but overeenkomstig de waarde van de mark in Nederlandsch geld in Jan. 1922, at the mark's January 1922 value in Dutch money.
DISTRICT COURT OF ROTTERDAM Second Chamber Session of 1 December 1926 Presiding judge, Mr. P. IJssel de Schepper Judges, Mrs S. N. B. Halbertsma and Prof. W. H. Drucker (deputy) Discharge of a debt expressed in a depreciated currency. The judge must decide, according to the factual circumstances, whether the debtor is obliged to pay a larger nominal sum than the original debt. Thus it is, among other things, relevant whether the debt had long been due, and whether payment had earlier been pressed for. The company under German law Markgraf & Tau, established at Berlin, plaintiff in the main claim, defendant in the counterclaim, procureur Mr. J. J. van Walsem, against the N. V. Beens' Woninginrichting Maatschappij [Beens' Home-Furnishing Company], established at Rotterdam, defendant in the main claim, plaintiff in the counterclaim, procureur Mr. F. A. M. Cavadino. The Court; Having heard [the parties], etc.; As to the law: On the main claim: Considering, that etc.; On the counterclaim: Considering that the amount of the claim in German marks is established, but that a dispute exists between the parties over whether Markgraf & Tau can discharge this debt with marks now worthless, or whether they are obliged to make payment in accordance with the value of the mark in Netherlands currency in January 1922; Considering that Beens' position is correct, that an old mark-debt cannot at all times and under all circumstances be discharged by payment of the original amount in old marks; Considering that in many cases, in order not to disturb too greatly the original relationship between the parties, the debtor may be required to pay a nominal sum larger than his original debt; Considering that the judge must therefore, under [certain] circumstances, find occasion to order such payment; Considering that a first requirement for this, however, is that the judge be informed from what relationship the debt arises, so that in his judgment he may take care that the original relationship between the parties is preserved as far as possible; Considering that this cannot happen in the present case, since Beens has made no statement whatsoever concerning the cause from which its mark-claim arises; Considering that, insofar as the Court can assess the claim, there is no ground to order Markgraf & Tau to pay more than the present value of the original debt; Considering that nothing appears other than that there was a monetary claim, arising in January 1922, which from the outset was due and could therefore at all times have been enforced by Beens; Considering further that it has not been shown that Beens pressed for payment; Considering that it is also entirely not implausible that Beens wished to let the claim stand, since at the time many acted this way, because in Germany a certain sum in marks could achieve more than in the Netherlands with the equivalent value in Netherlands currency, while many also held out hope that a later conversion into Netherlands currency would prove more favourable; Considering that Beens does say that it did not concern itself with the claim, because it would in any case have to be set off against Markgraf & Tau's own claims; Considering, however, that, as already considered above, that set-off did not take place, and that [Beens'] appeal to the counterclaim was first made against Markgraf & Tau on 1 November 1922, by which time the value of the mark had already become very slight; Considering that even then no emphatic request was made for settlement of the claim; Considering, etc. [no separate operative disposition ("Judging:") is printed for this item in the source; see Reading notes]
The court refused. It found geen grond, no ground, to make Markgraf & Tau pay more than the debt's present, collapsed value. Its reasons: Beens had never disclosed where the claim came from, had never pressed for payment, and had raised the set-off only on 1 November 1922, when the mark was already all but worthless. The case was heard on 1 December 1926, thirteen days after the liquidation motion went out to shareholders, and printed in the Nederlandsche Staatscourant only on 28 November 1927 . Mr. F. A. M. Cavadino represented Beens, and mr. J. J. van Walsem the Berliners.
The wind-down
The end was a process, and it ran through three years of the press. In November 1926 an extraordinary shareholders' meeting was announced to consider a liquidatievoorstel, a motion to wind the company up.
BEENS' HOME FURNISHINGS CO. At an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of N.V. Beens' Woninginrichting to be held shortly, the dissolution and a liquidation proposal will be submitted for consideration.
Closing-down sales followed: an opheffingsuitverkoop in February 1927, and a further liquidation sale that closed in April.
> N.V. BEENS' HOME-FURNISHING CO. > COOLSINGEL 103. > Goods that one wishes to sell within a very short time must be low-priced. Within a few weeks we must clear our Showrooms and wish to liquidate our stock beforehand, which is why our prices are set unprecedentedly low. Visit our > CLOSING-DOWN SALE! > Complete Suites of Furniture, Carpets, Fabrics, Fancy Goods and Art Objects.
By April 1927 the showroom itself was on its way out. In mid-April the Rotterdam press reported that Coolsingel 103 would be rebuilt as a modern café-restaurant. This was the shop where the firm was at present still housed, and the café would open around the first of July. The landlord, den heer A. R. B. Maas, meubelfabrikant, a furniture manufacturer, was doing the rebuilding, turning a furnishing showroom into a café.
> NEW CAFÉ-RESTAURANT ON THE COOLSINGEL. > The shop at Coolsingel no. 103, where the N.V. Beens' Home-Furnishing Company is currently established, will be rebuilt and fitted out by its owner, mr. A. R. B. Maas, furniture manufacturer, into a modern café with terrace, bar, restaurant, billiard hall, function room and large meeting rooms. > As the premises are 56 m deep, something may well be expected of such a large café-restaurant, which is already to open on 1 July.
The phrase thans nog, at present still, catches the moment: a reporter noting an occupancy about to end. The last act came in the summer of 1928. A notice placed at the request of a bank advertised the entire goods stock of de N.V. Beens' Woninginrichting in liquidatie for auction at the Notarishuis. Club chairs and showcases, sideboards and Wilton carpets were on the list, and so were the works' own modelstoelen en rompen, its model chairs and frames. The firm's product range, and the patterns it built from, were put up for sale.
PUBLIC SALE MANAGEMENT: VAN MARLE EN DE SILLE, Auctioneers, Brokers and Appraisers. NOTARISHUIS — WIJNSTRAAT 35 — ROTTERDAM. By Notary S. S. WIJSENBEEK, at the request of a Banking Institution, on Tuesday 5 and Wednesday 6 June, at 10 a.m.: THE ENTIRE STOCK OF GOODS OF N.V. BEENS WONINGINRICHTING IN LIQ. including VERY FINE STUDY, BEDROOM and DINING ROOM SUITES, 2 PHONOLAS, LUXURY FURNITURE, CHESTERFIELD SUITES, CLUB ARMCHAIRS, DISPLAY CABINETS, BUFFETS, SMALL FURNITURE PIECES, MODEL CHAIRS and FRAMES, WILTON, PERSIAN and other CARPETS AND RUGS, DIVAN AND TABLE COVERS, ART OBJECTS, CLOCKS, LIGHT FIXTURES, etc. etc. Viewing days: Saturday 2, Sunday 3 and Monday 4 June from 10 to 4 o'clock. Catalogue available upon request from VAN MARLE EN DE SILLE — WIJNSTRAAT 35 — ROTTERDAM. 30231.120
The paintings and antiquities were advertised for a separate sale, which is . The advertisement says it was placed at the request of a bank.
The works did not fall silent with the company, and a separate company was in place before the end had even begun. The Continental Carpet and Furnishing Company, Continentale Tapijt en Meubelstoffen Handelmaatschappij, with a capital of f50,000, was a distinct parallel N.V. It was incorporated on 7 September 1926, ten weeks before the liquidation motion reached the shareholders, and H. P. Beens directed it from the same corner . In 1929 F. J. Beens would float a successor furnishing firm of his own. The company founded in 1918 was printed at the corner in the 1920 street list and ran its factory there from January 1921 . By 1928 it was gone, but the works went on. What became of the two brothers who ran it is .