By Russ Kaspar/WILO 96.9 FM/Boone 102.7 FM/ Clinton County Daily News/ Boone County Daily News/ Carroll County Daily News/ HoosierlandTV.com
FRANKFORT – The man bringing Frankfort’s Old Post Office back to life says the inside of the 1913 building is “a disaster area” right now. He also says he has done this before.
John Noel and his daughter, Liberty, spoke to the Frankfort Rotary Club on Thursday, October 22. They showed photos and video from inside the building at Washington and Columbia streets. The building served as Frankfort’s post office for decades. It was later remodeled into the Frankfort Police Department headquarters, which stayed there until the city built a new police station on the west side of town on Indiana 28.
“I’ve kept really what’s going on on the inside pretty close to my vest, because it’s kind of like sausage,” Noel told the group. “You like eating it, but you don’t need to see it being made.”
Doing It a Second Time
Noel grew up in Tennessee and lived in Georgia for many years. He said he is “very new to town.” He married his childhood sweetheart, Lori, a year ago. She lives in Flora, and Noel said driving through Frankfort, he came to like its downtown and spotted the old post office behind the library.
That’s because he has already restored one. Noel owns the Old Post Office in Bainbridge, Georgia, a 1914 Classical Revival building that now serves as an event venue with guest suites and a speakeasy-style bar called the Mailroom. This year that project received a 2026 Excellence in Rehabilitation Award from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Bainbridge mayor and council publicly recognized Noel for it.
“The architecture on the outside’s somewhat different, but the inside is almost exactly the same,” Noel said. “This is 1913 construction, mine is 1914 construction.”
How the Deal Came Together
Noel said he called around about the empty building until he reached Don Stock, and then city leaders, including Mayor Judy Sheets and Joe Palmer. He said the building was then transferred to the city’s Economic Development Authority, which gave him the chance to buy it. He is now about four months into owning it.
During questions, a Rotarian noted that the project is privately funded, with no city or county money. Noel agreed.
“I see it as a public-private partnership,” he said. “Even though I’m not asking for any money from the public side, I have had nothing but good cooperation from the public side.”
Noel said the city acquired the building from the federal government in 1977 for somewhere between $70,000 and $100,000, and then renovated it. He said the building had a lot of deferred maintenance, but added, “That’s not to beat up on the city.”
Demolition First, Then Restoration
Most of Noel’s work so far has been taking out the modern additions. Drop ceilings, drywall and bulletproof lobby glass are gone.
“I am a hysterical preservationist,” Noel said with a laugh. “I am saving every single thing, or as we say in the South, every cotton-picking thing that is old.”
He showed pictures of the large arched windows in the former mail-sorting room, which he now calls the ballroom. The original windows from 1913 have been opened for the first time in decades. “They’re all functioning,” he said. A working organ donated by his wife’s mother is already in the ballroom.
He joked about Stan Smith, who handled the building’s 1978 renovation, but said Smith’s work turned out to help. The upper offices Smith added will become a balcony looking down into the ballroom. Noel said it could add seating for 50 to 75 more people.
Outside, crews led by painting contractor Leo Gonzalez are repointing the masonry and saving the windows before winter. “I don’t want it to go through another winter with ice getting in here,” he said.
Ballroom in Spring, Speakeasy Next
The building has about 12,500 square feet. Noel said the upstairs event space should open “aggressively in the spring,” with May 22 as the target. That is Liberty’s high school graduation date, and the room joked that her senior party could be the first event.
The second phase is a 1920s jazz-themed speakeasy in the basement with a bar, craft cocktails, a billiards area and a cigars-only smoking room with an air system to remove the smell. “This is not a bar bar,” Noel said. “It is a speakeasy bar.”
Noel said Indiana’s alcohol rules require food sales, which Georgia does not, so the basement will have either a restaurant partner or a catered setup. He prefers a restaurant partner, “the Cadillac solution.”
He expects to draw customers from Lafayette, Westfield, Zionsville and Kokomo, not only Frankfort, citing “Angry Donkey” as an example of how quality establishments can draw from the entire region from Zionsville, Boone County and Noblesville/Westfield areas to Lafayette. The population density in the region allows this mobility if the quality of the establishment delivers on the promise. 750,000 to 950,000 people live within a one hour drive of Frankfort, providing a market supportive of this initiative, according to Noel.
Parking and Access Questions
Rotarians asked about parking. Noel said the property has about 15 spaces he controls, plus 10 to 12 city spaces. He hopes to share evening parking with the library and nearby churches.
He said the main floor event space will be fully ADA accessible with a rear ramp, a wide door and ADA restrooms. He said the basement speakeasy is harder. “The thing is a bomb shelter,” Noel said. He said an elevator could damage the structure and that he does not expect full ADA access to the basement because of the building’s historic construction.
Community Asks
Noel said he plans to offer the space to nonprofits such as the United Way and Clinton County Civic Theatre for free or at low cost once the business is running. Paid weddings and private events will support the venue.
He asked residents to follow “Old Post Office Frankfort” on Facebook and share it.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61591981470311.
He also asked anyone with photos, memorabilia or original items from the building, including old mailboxes or a postmaster’s chair, to contact him.
“A new day is dawning for the old post office,” Noel said.
