Thoughts from the President: From the beginning, Lake Forest attracted and retained many of the nation’s foremost urban planners, architects, and landscape and garden designers.
From the beginning, Lake Forest attracted and retained many of the nation’s foremost urban planners, architects, and landscape and garden designers.
As the City considers how to preserve and redevelop the Historic Business District, it is important to remember that Lake Forest was not created by accident. From the beginning, it attracted and retained many of the nation’s foremost urban planners, architects, and landscape and garden designers. While they came from different disciplines and times, with varying approaches, styles, and ideas, they shared one thing in common — vision. Such vision enabled them to plan spaces and structures in Lake Forest that were not only beautiful and inspirational, but economically feasible, fully livable, and compatible with their surroundings.
As described in this issue, this began with Almerin Hotchkiss, the leading landscape architect in the Midwest in the mid 19th century, who drew up the original plat for Lake Forest in 1857. We can imagine what he saw in an undeveloped Lake Forest by what he did. Through vision, he preserved the natural beauty of the area by platting Lake Forest in an organic manner, following the contours and topographical features of the land, rather than by laying down a rectilinear grid that ignored such features. In addition, he dedicated the best land along the lake for a park — Forest Park — which residents have enjoyed for over 160 years. His general plan for Lake Forest has aptly been described as a city in a park and was among the earliest, large scale commercial residential developments in the Chicago region, predating both Frederick Law Olmstead’s design for Riverside and Nathan Franklin Barrett’s design for Pullman.
Through vision, Howard Van Doren Shaw transformed Lake Forest’s original business district, then consisting of a haphazard jumble of storefronts along Western Ave., into Market Square (see photo above), the first planned shopping center in the United States. Market Square is still studied today, over 100 years later, as a masterpiece of urban design, arising out of the City Beautiful Movement. As a result of this plan and many other exemplary works, Shaw was the first Midwesterner to receive the prestigious American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal, awarded in recognition of his significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.
And, more recently, through vision, Peregrine Bryant designed the Lake Forest Bank and Trust Building (1990s) and the (on the cover) Baytree/Federal Savings Bank Building in the Market Square South Courtyard (2005), while Bill Bergmann (1967) and Diana Melichar (1987) designed additions to the First National Bank/Northern Trust Building, along Deerpath Rd. In each instance, these architects created buildings and spaces that were visually compatible with the heritage structures in Lake Forest’s Historic Business District and contributed to the traditional village style that characterizes it.
Now, as before, vision is needed to thoughtfully redevelop the Historic Business District. Vision alone, however, will not be enough to achieve this objective. Thoughtful development requires cooperation and a consensus among City governance, owners, and residents. The first step in this process has been the City-initiated surveys aimed at determining what residents value in Lake Forest. These surveys confirmed that residents treasure the historic visual character of Lake Forest and want to preserve it. In the Looking Forward Lake Forest survey, 92% of respondents agreed with the statement that the overall character of Lake Forest’s Historic Business District was a defining element of Lake Forest. More recently, in the 2023 City of Lake Forest Community- Wide Survey, 92% of respondents identified the historic character of Lake Forest as important when choosing to live here. As a result of such overwhelming input and support, the City committed in the revised Comprehensive Plan for the Business District to preserve, restore, and maintain the historic character of that district and to ensure that any new development is compatible with that character. The City is implementing this plan, starting with Bank Lane, and finds itself in a familiar spot — seeking to retain a consultant with vision to assist in developing design concepts for enhancements to the Bank Lane streetscape. The Lake Forest Preservation Foundation is committed to working with the City to find and retain urban designers with vision and experience in creating compatible structures and spaces within historic districts — not only for Bank Lane but for the entire Historic Business District. With such vision, the Foundation believes that Lake Forest can once again be a model of thoughtful development that preserves and enhances its now historic character.
Brian Norton, President