More Than Wood: The Fire Tim Bean Has Been Keeping Alive for 172 Years
How five generations of the Bean family turned a Hampshire farm into the Fox Valley's go-to source for firewood done right
Hampshire, IL
There is a moment that happens around a fire. You know the one. The night gets quieter, the conversation gets easier, and for a little while, the world slows down. It doesn’t happen by accident. And it definitely doesn’t happen with wet wood, muddy logs, or firewood that dies out before the moment is even started.
Tim Bean knows this. He has known it since 1998, when he started Bean’s Farm on the same land his great-great-grandfather, J.W. Bean, purchased on Big Timber Road in Hampshire, Illinois, in 1854. Five generations. One hundred and seventy-two years. The same fields, the same woods, the same farmhouse — and today, some of the finest firewood and landscape material you can buy in the Fox Valley.
But let’s start at the beginning, because this story earns it.
J.W. Bean arrived in Hampshire in 1854, built a home, and established a dairy farm. That same house is where Tim sleeps tonight. Over the next century and a half, the Bean family adapted as farming demanded. George H. Bean built the barn that still stands on the property in 1896. Tim’s grandfather, Earl, grew a Holstein herd so productive that his 1945 butterfat averages were nearly double the national standard. Tim’s father, faced with falling milk prices in the 1950s, pivoted to grain. When grain margins tightened in the early 1990s, he sold the equipment and changed course again.
Every generation read the land and made the hard call. Tim’s was no different.
In 1993, at a crossroads of his own, Tim asked himself a simple question: what do I actually want to do? The answer was just as simple. He wanted to stay on the farm. He wanted to sell firewood. By 1998, he had built Bean’s Farm into exactly that.
“A lot of people can sell firewood. That part isn’t hard.”
What Tim decided early on was that he would never cut corners on the part that matters. Firewood is intimate, he’ll tell you. If it’s dirty, you get dirty. If it’s smelly, your house is smelly. And if it’s wet or poorly split, it won’t burn long enough to give you the moment you were after. He decided early on that he would never receive that phone call. Disappointed is not an option.
The wood at Bean’s Farm comes from local tree services, storm damage, and occasional land clearing within a 10 to 15 mile radius. Tim selects the logs personally, choosing only what will make quality firewood and passing on what he calls the “garbage wood” — the fast-burning, low-quality material that fills a truck but not an evening. It’s cut, split, and stacked green in enormous piles, then moved to open racks where wind and sun can do their work. Stack it at four feet green and it shrinks to three and a half — so Bean’s does the drying first, then the final stacking. Every step is deliberate.
Tim also rounds out his supply with BBQ wood — cherry, hickory, post oak, and apple. His logic is hard to argue with. If you’re cooking over a local fire, why would the wood come from somewhere else, processed with who-knows-what, when you could buy clean, chemical-free hardwood from a farm that has been here longer than Illinois has been a state?
Business owners understand the discipline that takes. You build a reputation one transaction at a time. You don’t cut corners because the short-term savings always cost you more later. Tim Bean figured that out in his first year and has been operating by it for more than two decades.
Firewood, at its best, is never really about the wood. It’s about what the fire makes possible. The conversation that finally happens. The holiday your family will remember. The November evening that felt like it lasted forever in the best way. Those moments don’t come with a rain check. You either have good firewood or you don’t. You either have the fire or you don’t.
Tim Bean has spent 172 years of family history making sure you have it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Bean's Farm located?
Bean's Farm is located on Big Timber Road in Hampshire, IL, on land the Bean family has owned since 1854. East of Harmony and West of Route 20. 46W640 Big Timber Road, Hampshire.
What does Bean's Farm sell?
Firewood and landscape material, along with specialty BBQ wood including cherry, hickory, post oak, and apple.
How long has the Bean family owned this land?
The Bean family has owned and worked the land for five generations and 172 years, since J.W. Bean settled there in 1854.
Where does Bean's Farm source its firewood?
Wood comes from local tree services, storm damage, and occasional land clearing within a 10 to 15 mile radius of the farm.
What makes Bean's Farm firewood different?
Owner Tim Bean personally selects logs for quality, avoiding fast-burning "garbage wood," and dries wood in open racks before final stacking to ensure it burns properly.
Bean’s Farm — Hampshire, IL · beansfarm.com
Written by Jennifer for livingwellwithjennifer.com — spotlighting local Fox Valley businesses and the people behind them. Know a business with a story worth telling? Contact Jennifer at Jennifer.Abbatacola@N2co.com
