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If you ask my husband what I am like, he would tell you I love puzzles and I am somewhat stubborn. (Ok, he might not have used the word "somewhat.") Anyway, I have been thinking more about the connection of Buffalo Grove and Levittown. In Chicago we think of Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan when we think architectural history. As a kid of the suburbs with a degree in Architectural History, why do we have to always look at this trinity of architects and always think about their contributions to the Loop, Oak Park, etc? Someone had to have designed places like Skokie, Buffalo Grove, Des Plaines, etc. Let's take a look at the history of Chicago's Buffalo Grove. The village was settled in the 1840's but saw its greatest population boom immediately after its incorporation in 1958. The population tripled between 1960 and 1966. Dundee was the first state concrete road in northern Illinois opening automobile access. Below is Buffalo Grove in 1968. The Levitt& Son's development at the top of the photo is the Strathmore Subdivision, home today to Checker Dr, Twisted Oak, Arbor Gate, Burnt Ember and other streets. Just below that is the village's golf course that runs on the north side of Lake Cook Road. Just below that is the Levitt & Son's development that today is home to Whitehall, Plum Grove Circle, Weidner & other streets.  Here's the same today:  Now, back to being stubborn & liking puzzles. I wanted to see what a house in that 1968 picture would look like today. Look at the NE corner of Timber Hill & Country in 1968:  Pretty much Pleasantville right? No trees, houses still being built up the block. Well, here is that exact same house today:  I love figuring out this sort of stuff! What did things look like originally? How did these suburbs that we all roll our eyes at get to be the way they are? It's all pretty cool to learn about & I welcome your memories and comments. Thanks!
5 Comments
Mary Jo Reid
3/30/2016 11:31:10 am
Move here in 1960, Husband Bill was hired to teach at the newly opened Prospect High School. Bought home on Rosewood, one block from what is now Park Dist. Adm. offices, was Alcott school. Village ended on Bernard at Alcott school. Paid $10.00 to Developer Al Frank and got the house on land contract. All three kids went thru Dist. 21 schools, Wheeling H.S. and the last B.G. high school. Hi - I grew up in an East Coast Levitt community in Maryland known as Belair At Bowie in Bowie, Maryland. I am writing a book on Belair At Bowie. Trying to understand the differences in Levitt communities. How many different Levitt communities are in Chicagoland and where are they? Thanks!
David
1/21/2026 08:14:42 am
In summer 1970, when I was four, we moved into one of the new Levitt & Sons houses on Checker Drive (SE corner of Twilight Pass). The new elementary school was just being built, which was so easily in view from our house. Yet from K-through-3rd grade, I insisted on riding the bus; how silly. What wasn't silly was how I learned to be an explorer all throughout the new Strathmore Subdivision (and I had forgotten it was called that!). When I was five or so, I began wandering the neighborhood and would always get lost. Always. You see every fifth house looked just like our house, and every street seemed to have the same degree of bend to it. Whenever I realized that I was lost I would just sit on a curb and wait - for some parent (mine or a friend's) to drive up, roll down their window, and say they have been looking for me. Soon I figured the solution: at the southern edge of the subdivision remained an old silo on a slight hill, I think around where Ivy Park is today. I learned to always keep a sense of where I was with respect to that silo. I learned the concept of directional orientation by use of one visible landmark. Soon I greatly expanded the radius of my exploration - all the way to Old Checker Rd. We moved away in summer 1975. Leave a Reply. |
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AuthorSarah Rothschild, Realtor & Architectural History Nerd. |
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