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To some, Maze Lumber is a heavily sought-after resource for many different projects around the house or for outdoor landscaping. Others may not know Maze Lumber, located at 1100 Water St. in Peru, has offered its wide variety of materials for 177 years.
“We definitely take pride in our variety and having something for everyone,” said Maze Lumber Operations Manager Andrew Kreofsky. “We have been here for 177 years, and we’re accidentally a very well-kept secret under the Rt. 251 bridge to the point where there are people who live a few blocks away have no idea we exist. But we have repeat customers on a weekly basis from Somonauk, Pekin, Bloomington, and elsewhere.
“It’s just kind of a funny thing – if you know, you know.”
The variety of Maze’s items can be seen year-round, but spring offers a little something special since the season offers indoor and outdoor options.
“What we love in the spring, we offer a large range of decking, ranging from wood to composite. We can help people redesign their entire deck or simply help by refacing or beautifying it by adding some new stain, putting down new deck boards, or swapping out the railing,” Kreofsky said.
“On top of decking in the spring, we love to offer windows and siding. We have a few different brands of windows to offer in basically any price level people are looking for. It’s the same for our siding. We have vinyl, composite, wood, and stone,” he said. “We do a lot of mixing and matching. We’ll do cedar shake, painted lap siding, and stone all in the same installation to give it a really unique look.”
For your home’s exterior, Maze has what you need to make your yard, walkway, staircase, patio, or gazebo stand out.
“We have a very nice selection of mulch and bulk landscape stone. We have about 10 different decorative rocks,” said Kreofsky. “We have two different types of mulch that we offer. We can deliver anywhere in a 30-mile radius for our landscaping material. We’re surprisingly well known for our mulch and landscaping rock in this area. We have a few semis dropping off more material every week for us. We’re always in very strong supply. We offer delivery for anything and everything we have at Maze.”
Kreofsky, who grew up in Wabasha, Minnesota, and went to college in northern Michigan before relocating near his family in Illinois, is a sixth-generation member of the Maze family that has owned and operated the company after Samuel Nesbitt Maze founded the lumberyard 177 years ago. Since he is in the bloodline, he had to do what each of the other Maze family members had to do – work their way up the ladder.
“I have been in retail since I was a child,” Kreofsky said. “I moved to Peru after college to take a part-time summer job in the lumberyard. It very quickly became an inside sales position, and I just worked my way up the ranks. There is a seventh generation, but they’re currently 7- and 8-year-olds. We’re looking forward to training them and putting them in the right direction to keep the family lumberyard going.”