Call to Action: Preserving Wilmette’s Historic Charm
Date
11 months ago
The beautiful home at 426 Central Avenue in Wilmette is awaiting demolition. Read more to learn how you can preserve Wilmette's unique historical charm.
Need a One-of-a-Kind Historic Home?
Date
7 years ago
World's Fair house owner still hopes for buyer, but anxious to develop Wilmette property The owner of a house built for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair is balancing offers for the building, now in Wilmette, with worries about when he can free the land it sits on for development. Read more at chicagotribune.com
Call to Action: Preserving Wilmette’s Historic Charm
Date
11 months ago
The beautiful home at 426 Central Avenue in Wilmette is awaiting demolition. Read more to learn how you can preserve Wilmette's unique historical charm.
Featured Local Landmark
Date
7 years ago
Did you know that this local treasure at 600 Central Ave. is one of 30 landmarks designated locally by Wilmette? Architectural and Historic Background by the village: The W. Mead Walter House is significant because of its outstanding architecture. It is a wonderful example of the Queen Anne style and also shares many features of the Shingle Style that grew out of the Queen Anne movement. Also the house, originally constructed in 1893, retains much of its integrity. The only significant change to the house was the enclosure of the second story porch in the 1950’s. Although this is an alteration to the front façade of the building, the change from screen windows to glass is one that has small impact on the architecture of the house. Also this change was approximately 50 years ago and is part of the change over time that occurs in any house’s lifetime. 600 Central was listed in the Illinois Historic Structures Survey conducted in the 1970’s. The house is also listed as “significant” in the Village of Wilmette’s Historic Sites Survey of East Wilmette. In 1892 Hattie Walter bought the property at 600 Central that her husband, W. Mead Walter, would design a...
Historic Preservation Award Nominations Due March 30th
Date
7 years ago
Historic Preservation Award Nominations Due March 30th The Village of Wilmette Historic Preservation Commission is requesting nominations for its 24th Annual Historic Preservation Awards Program. Nominations are open to residential, commercial, public and religious buildings as well as landscapes within the village limits. Nomination categories are: Stewardship Awards acknowledge property owners of five years or longer who have retained the historic appearance of their property. Restoration Awards acknowledge projects in which a building, garden or landscape has been returned to its historic appearance. The restoration of an interior space will also be eligible. Sympathetic Addition Awards acknowledge alterations or additions to existing structures which are sensitive to their historic character. Streetscape Compatibility Awards acknowledge exceptional examples of new construction which are sympathetic to the historic character of their neighborhoods or settings. The nominated sites will be judged by a panel of preservation professionals and the winners will be honored at a special award ceremony co-sponsored by the Wilmette Historical Museum in May. Nomination forms are available here and at Village Hall. Completed nominations must be submitted by Friday, March 30, 2018. For more information, please contact Kate McManus at 847-853-7522 or email mcmanusk@wilmette.com.
Midcentury Keck Home in Wilmette to be Restored
Date
7 years ago
Midcentury Keck Home in Wilmette to be Restored The next-door neighbors of a modernist house in Wilmette by the prolific Keck & Keck bought it after a longtime owner's recent death and plan to update it. The boxy three-bedroom house, familiar to Sheridan Road users for its blue-gray shutters and yellow trim, sold in mid-February for $672,500 without going on the market. "There was no need to put it on the market because I had a client who said he wanted to buy if it ever became available," said Mary Minogue, the Jameson Sotheby's International Realty agent who represented both buyer and seller. She declined to identify the buyers, but said they plan to rehab the interior. Read more at Crain's
Wilmette Historic Preservation Commission Needs Volunteers
Date
7 years ago
The village president is responsible for appointing community volunteers to fill commissions. The nine-member historic preservation commission as of February 2018 only has five volunteers. Please consider adding your name to the volunteer roster.
World’s Fair Home Discovered in Wilmette
Date
7 years ago
A family of developers who unwittingly bought a Wilmette house that played a role in the modernist housing vision on display at Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair in 1933 are looking for somebody to move the steel-framed house. "We didn't know the house had anything historical about it when we bought it," said Max Kruszewski, an executive in his father's Wilmette firm, MJK Homes. "Now we want to see if somebody can take it and preserve it." On Dec. 5, MJK paid $915,000 for the site on Chestnut Avenue, two-fifths of an acre that was offered as vacant land by its sellers, whose family had owned the house for several decades. Only after the house sold did someone contact village officials, who in turn told the Kruszewskis, Max and his father, Andrew, that the squarish house may have been the World's Fair prototype for steel-framed houses. Architectural historian Lisa Schrenk, author of "Building a Century of Progress: The Architecture of the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair," identified a house in Palos Heights that no longer stands as the actual exposition house and the Wilmette house as one of several versions that were built around the time the fair. But after...