Where Architecture, Nature, and Civic Life Converge on the North Shore
Lake Forest is one of the oldest planned communities in the United States, founded in 1857 by a group of Presbyterian Chicago businessmen who hired landscape planner Almerin Hotchkiss to design a town that would feel more like a park than a suburb. Hotchkiss gave Lake Forest its signature characteristic: curvilinear streets that follow the natural topography, providing limited access to the city in a deliberate effort to isolate the settlement from outside traffic. The road layout he designed in 1857 is largely intact today, and it is one of the reasons the eastern sections of Lake Forest near the lake still feel genuinely secluded despite the city’s proximity to everything.
The founding of Lake Forest College the same year as the town gave the early community its educational identity. The college attracted scholars, professors, and the families that followed them, reinforcing a civic culture oriented toward education and the arts that has never left. Lake Forest was incorporated under a special charter in 1861, and it has maintained its own strong identity relative to the North Shore communities surrounding it ever since.
The architecture is extraordinary and widely recognized as such. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of America’s most celebrated architects left work here. Howard Van Doren Shaw, David Adler, Henry Ives Cobb, Arthur Heun, and George Fred Keck all designed homes and estates in Lake Forest. Frank Lloyd Wright built here. Frederick Law Olmsted designed landscape projects here. Jens Jensen worked here. The estates that line the ravines and bluffs along Lake Michigan represent one of the most significant concentrations of residential architectural work in the Midwest, and the city’s Historic Preservation Commission actively protects them.
The commercial contribution that Lake Forest made to American urban planning is also significant. Market Square, designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw and completed in 1916, is widely recognized as the first planned shopping center in the United States. Shaw designed the U-shaped Arts and Crafts complex around a central green space, incorporating retail, residential, and office uses in a unified architectural vision. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. At 103,000 square feet, it remains a functioning downtown commercial center, anchoring the block east of the Metra station with boutique shops, restaurants, and the central green that hosts community events through the summer.
The Potawatomi people inhabited Lake County before European settlement arrived, and their presence in the area was still noted by early settlers through the 1830s and 1840s. Lake Forest sits on the Lake Michigan bluffs in Lake County, 35 miles north of the Loop, bounded to the north by Lake Bluff and to the south by Fort Sheridan and Highland Park.
Living in Lake Forest
Lake Forest’s housing market is among the most distinctive on the North Shore, shaped by the architectural legacy of the founding era and the consistent demand of buyers who know exactly what they are looking for.
The housing stock spans nearly 165 years of construction. The oldest homes, some dating to the 1860s and 1870s, cluster near the original town center east of the Metra station and along the lake bluffs. Estates from the grand era of North Shore residential architecture, built roughly between 1880 and 1930, occupy the tree-lined streets of eastern Lake Forest on lots of two acres or more, with carriage houses, extensive gardens, and the architectural signatures of the architects who designed them. Tudor, Colonial, French Norman, and Arts and Crafts styles all appear throughout the eastern sections of the city. Newer construction, including Colonial Revivals and contemporary custom homes, fills the western sections of Lake Forest that developed through the postwar decades and into the 1990s and 2000s.
The market runs at prices that reflect both the architectural quality and the scarcity of what is available. The median sale price across all homes has been running around $1.1 million to $1.2 million, with the transaction-level median for the full city registering around $1.2 million in recent data. Lakefront and bluff-top estates trade at significantly higher levels, with individual sales running into the multi-millions. The market is somewhat competitive by North Shore standards, with homes averaging 58 days on market, though well-priced properties and lakefront opportunities can move considerably faster. The city has seen meaningful year-over-year appreciation, with price increases in the 10 to 24 percent range depending on the measurement period and property type.
Roughly 91 percent of Lake Forest’s housing stock is owner-occupied, reflecting a community where residents are deeply invested in the city’s character. The average home sits on a generous lot, and the curvilinear street design Hotchkiss laid out in 1857 means that most blocks feel quieter and more private than their physical distance from neighbors would suggest.
Lake Forest is served by two Metra lines. The Union Pacific North Line stops at the historic East Lake Forest station, walkable from Market Square and the downtown commercial district, and runs daily service into Chicago’s Ogilvie Transportation Center. The Milwaukee District North Line serves West Lake Forest, providing a second rail option for residents in the newer western sections of the city. Interstate 94 is accessible to the west via Route 60, and Route 41 bisects the city north to south. O’Hare International Airport is approximately 40 minutes by car in reasonable traffic.
Businesses and Local Life
Lake Forest’s commercial life is concentrated in several distinct areas, each reflecting the city’s commitment to quality over volume and its deliberate resistance to chain retail.
Market Square remains the civic and commercial heart of the city. The 1916 Howard Van Doren Shaw-designed complex surrounds a central green with boutique shops, restaurants, and professional services in a setting that has been described as the quintessential American town center. The Metra station is a short walk from the square, and the entire block functions as a genuinely walkable downtown in a way that most suburbs do not achieve. Summer concerts are held on the square on Thursday evenings in June and July, drawing residents for outdoor performances under the historic arcade.
Gorton Center, the city’s primary arts and community venue, occupies a 1901 building designed by James Gamble Rogers and remodeled by Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1907. Gorton presents live music, theater productions, film screenings, comedy, and community events throughout the year. It houses the Citadel Theatre Company and the Music Institute of Chicago’s Lake Forest campus, and runs year-round arts education programming for children and adults through the Gorton Drama Studio. It is one of the most active community arts venues on the North Shore.
The Ragdale Foundation, located in a historic Arts and Crafts estate that was originally Howard Van Doren Shaw’s summer retreat, runs one of the country’s most respected artist residency programs. The property, built in 1897, hosts writers, visual artists, and composers in extended residencies and opens to the public periodically for events and tours. It is a genuine cultural institution with a national reputation operating quietly in a residential Lake Forest neighborhood.
Elawa Farm, a historic farm property operated by the Lake Forest Open Lands Association, offers programming in agriculture, ecology, and community education. The Lake Forest Open Lands Association itself, founded in 1967 by 12 residents, has preserved over 500 acres of open land in and around Lake Forest through active conservation work.
For outdoor recreation, Forest Park Beach on the Lake Michigan bluffs provides swimming, kayaking, and sailing access for Lake Forest residents. The city maintains Deerpath Golf Course, a public 18-hole course with views overlooking the ravines. Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve, on the former military base just south of the city, offers hiking and birdwatching along the lake bluffs. The Lake Forest Winter Club hosts ice skating, and the city’s many private clubs, including Onwentsia, Conway Farms, and the Lake Forest Club, offer golf, tennis, and equestrian facilities that have defined the community’s recreational life for over a century.
Lake Forest Day, held the first Wednesday of August each year, is the city’s signature community celebration, with a parade, carnival at West Park, and activities that draw residents from across the city. The Concerts in the Square series runs through summer. The History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff, located just east of the Metra station, operates as the community’s historical and archival institution, with exhibits, walking tours, and programs that bring the city’s 165-year history to life.
Lake Forest is one of a very small number of American suburbs where the founding vision has survived essentially intact. The street plan is Hotchkiss’s. The shopping center is Shaw’s. The college is original. The estates are where they have always been. And the civic infrastructure that has grown up around that founding framework, from the schools to Gorton Center to the Open Lands Association, reflects a community that has been consistently deliberate about what it wants to be. For buyers who have done the North Shore and want the one that has the deepest roots and the most distinctive sense of place, Lake Forest is the answer.
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