Okay, that indicates that either the front standard's lock to the bed, or the bed's focusing rail minimum position is too far from the film plane (by several millimeters). I presume you've ensured the focusing tray is fully retracted. I've seen felt or hard shims between shutter and front standard on some plate cameras when I've had the shutter off; that would be a lot of shim and produce a visible space behind the shutter and you'd surely be aware of it, having had the lenses (and presumably shutters) off. Is it possible the collector who had them before you might have swapped lens cells for cosmetic reasons, with no expectation of ever actually shooting with the cameras? If front and rear cells aren't matched as originals, it's possible for the focal length to change.
Alternately, that amount of focus change is less than a millimeter change in depth of the first element away from the second in Tessar type and triplet lenses. If someone before you had the individual glass elements out of the cells for cleaning, and missed a fraction of a turn returning the front element, you'd have your fifteen feet. You might even get that if the second element is in backward.