Lake Forest Preservation Symposium October 2026: Your Weekend Guide

The small house on this year's Lake Forest vehicle sticker has a steep roof and a columned porch. It first appeared in the October 1917 issue of Country Life in America with the caption "The home of Howard Shaw, architect, Lake Forest, Ill." The magazine called it a "modern English cottage." It is the only known drawing Howard Van Doren Shaw made of Ragdale, the summer home he built in 1897. The monogram in the lower left corner uses his initials in the same style as his personal bookplate, which can still be seen in the Ragdale House living room. The magazine page was given by Ragdale Life Trustee Carol Newman.

The city put it on the 2026–2027 sticker to mark two 50th anniversaries, Ragdale's and the Lake Forest Preservation Foundation's. That shared year peaks on the weekend of October 16–18. The three days move through buildings Lake Forest kept from being torn down and then turned into the rooms where it holds its parties, lectures and dinners. The sticker marks a weekend whose real subject is the town's everyday civic spaces.

Two Organizations, One Year: 1976

The Preservation Foundation was formed in 1976 by a group of residents worried that the demolitions happening then would permanently change the town's architectural and visual fabric. That same year, Shaw's granddaughter Alice Judson Hayes turned her family's long habit of hosting writers and artists at Ragdale into a formal artists community, the Ragdale Foundation.

The newsletter's history of both groups shows how the two stories have run side by side:

• 1897: Shaw buys the Ragdale acreage, the southern part of an old farm running from Green Bay Road west across the Skokie River.
• 1916: Shaw designs Stonebridge, the 30-acre William V. Kelley estate in Lake Bluff, later reused as Harrison House.
• 1971–72: The old Gorton School, built around 1900–1910 by J.G. Rogers and Shaw, is saved from demolition and reopened as a community center.
• October 9, 1976: The Foundation holds its first conference, "Historic Preservation Techniques for Community Conservation in Lake Forest," at Harrison House.
• 1986: Ragdale is accepted as a gift, with encouragement from the Preservation Foundation.
• Around 2000: The City and Lake Forest Open Lands team up to preserve the 200-acre estate that includes Elawa Farm. That same year, a 99-year lease hands all of Ragdale's upkeep to the Ragdale Foundation.
• Early 2020s: The Stonebridge estate buildings, Harrison House among them, are torn down.

The Foundation's own newsletter calls the fate of Harrison House "tragically ironic." The building that hosted the town's founding preservation conference did not survive to see the 50th. That is why this October's symposium, which falls almost exactly 50 years after that first meeting, takes place in buildings that did survive.

The Rescued Buildings Became the Town's Community Rooms

The Foundation has never bought estates itself. It has supported the City in buying historic properties that now serve as community centers around town. The newsletter names four of them: Gorton Center, Ragdale, Grove Campus and Elawa Farm. Each has its own charitable foundation, and each runs as a public-private partnership that keeps a significant building in use.

That list reads like a calendar of the town's ordinary activities. Elawa Farm's 1915 stable, designed by Alfred Hopkins, now holds a farm-to-table kitchen, restaurant and garden in northwest Lake Forest. Ragdale has supported more than 5,000 artists in residence since 1976. In 2024 it finished renovating Shaw's Barnhouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, adding an expanded dining room, a commercial kitchen and artist living space. The Preservation Foundation lists its own office at 400 East Illinois Road. That is Gorton's address, the old schoolhouse saved in the early 1970s.

Gorton is also where the symposium's Saturday and the town's ordinary Saturday overlap.

Saturday, October 17, at Two Addresses

The main symposium day runs from 9:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Lake Forest College's Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel. It opens with coffee and registration, followed by a welcome from College President Michael Sosulski. The ticket page lists the welcome at 9:45, and the Patch listing gives 9:50. Four panels fill the day:

1. 10–10:45 a.m., "Why Preservation Matters – How is Lake Forest Different?" Frank Butterfield, Jason Wicha, Art Miller and Thomas Rajkovic, moderated by former Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin.
2. 11–11:45 a.m., "The Legacy of Shaw, Adler & Anderson." Stuart Cohen, William Rutledge and Paul Bergmann, moderated by Geoffrey Baer of WTTW.
3. 1:30–2:15 p.m., "Preservation vs. Progress – Who Owns the Future of Our Cities?" Richard Economakis, Adrian Smith, Javier Quintana de Una and Lee Bey, moderated by Lynn Osmond.
4. 2:30–3:15 p.m., "The Future of the Past – What's Next for Preservation?" Thomas Rajkovich, Bonnie McDonald, Ashley Wilson and Dajoin Williams, moderated by Bill Kurtis.

A campus lunch stroll with book signings fills the hour from noon to 1 p.m. The day ends with Art Miller leading a Market Square architecture tour from 3:45 to 4:30. Landmarks Illinois listed Butterfield, its interim CEO, as a member of the opening panel in its August roundup.

Half an hour after the tour ends, Gorton Center opens its Fall Family Happy Hour, 5 to 6:30 p.m., with $15 tickets. Gorton's 21-and-over Oktoberfest follows from 6 to 10 p.m. So on October 17, people can spend the morning at panels about saving buildings and the evening at a beer party inside one that was saved.

The Full Weekend at a Glance

Ticket prices differ from one listing to another. The Patch listing says the Saturday price includes lunch and the tour. Ragdale's anniversary page links to registration for each day. As of the current listings, none of the three days is marked sold out.

Friday's free open house is the most practical part of the weekend. Sessions cover "We purchased a historic home, now what?", tax incentives with Susan Benjamin, and how the City's Historic Preservation Commission process works. There are also window and roofing demonstrations, vendor displays, displays on the West Park and Lasker Estate historic districts, and Ragdale Discovery Tours. The Lasker displays tie to a proposal the Foundation's winter newsletter described as still under review. It would create a historic district around David Adler's house for Albert Lasker and about a dozen nearby outbuildings. It would be the largest local district west of Route 41 and the first new one in a quarter century. Ragdale's campus is at 1260 N. Green Bay Road, and its parking lot entrance is at 1230 N. Green Bay Road.

Sunday opens up several private homes. Historic houses, including the William E. Clow, Jr. house and "Handy Green," are open from 10 a.m. to noon. The Ragdale exhibit at the History Center is open from 10:30 to noon, followed by a reception in the Lake Forest Library courtyards from noon to 1 p.m.

The Free Events Before and After the Weekend

The History Center of Lake Forest–Lake Bluff's exhibit, "Alice's Gift of Ragdale: 50 Years of Inspiring Creativity & Preserving History," opened September 19 and runs through April 3, 2027. It is open Tuesday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. The exhibit and its related events are free.

Two evening programs bracket the symposium. On Tuesday, October 13, from 7 to 8 p.m., Ragdale Executive Director Paul Sacaridiz leads "How Creativity Happens," a conversation with four current artists in residence: Katy Didden, Pramila Vasudevan, Elliot Menard and Nicolei Gupit. On Tuesday, November 17, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., "Read with Ragdale" features an actor reading a surprise short story from 1976, followed by a discussion led by Ragdale Trustee Ann Walters. Guests who arrive at 6:15 can join a guided tour of the exhibit with History Center Executive Director Carol Summerfield.

For anyone who can't make the weekend, the Foundation posted a new three-part video series on September 23, narrated by Bill Kurtis. It traces the people, places and preservation work behind Lake Forest's architectural character. Ragdale's anniversary year runs from May 7, 2026, to May 7, 2027, the dates of Shaw's birth and death. The following Saturday, October 24, Gorton hosts a free Trunk or Treat from 10 a.m. to noon. Registration is required, and the event may be canceled if it rains.

HL2R Group follows Lake Forest's historic houses as closely as its market. If the Clow house tour or the Friday window workshop has you thinking about what your own older home is worth, start with a home valuation from our team.