Michael Butler`s slate-gray hair is worn in a style reminiscent of the heyday of ”Hair,” the musical he catapulted to fame from off-Broadway oblivion in the 1960s. But the once rakish handlebar mustache is trimmed to a more conservative style as if in deference to the 1980s.
Nevertheless, a nostalgia for the `60s pervades the world of this scion of Oak Brook`s founding father. Miniature scenes from the `60s catch the eye at random from a collage/montage that hangs beside his desk in the Oak Brook Polo Club, of which he is chairman. The conversation inevitably drifts to
”Hair,” and Butler discloses his plan for a revival of the show, which he considers the greatest success of his life.
”If that (producing ”Hair”) was the only credit I would have in my life, I would be very happy. It was a true communication of the hippie philosophy.”
Known during the `60s as the ”hippie millionaire,” Butler, now 59, was
”mostly on airplanes,” he said, building his reputation as theatrical producer and leader in the peace movement while his father, the late Paul Butler, who founded Oak Brook, was building a community. During that decade the fledgling village, incorporated in 1958, grew by leaps and bounds to become a community of expensive homes, corporate headquarters and a major regional shopping center.
Today, ”Paul Butler`s dream,” as Oak Brook has been called, is Michael Butler`s home. And Butler`s infatuation with a time 20 years ago doesn`t blind him to the here and now.
”Oak Brook is where I live now by choice. It ranks very important to me. I think Oak Brook is a very wonderful community. I like the people here. I like the atmosphere. I think Midwestern people are conservative, but they`re also a lot warmer than (people) in New York, for example.”
Seated at his desk, flanked by a photograph of his father and one of Prince Charles, who recently rode one of Butler`s polo ponies in Palm Beach, Fla., and will play polo in Oak Brook in September, Butler goes on to reminisce of his childhood and his father and to talk of his own dreams:
”My childhood out here was idyllic, to say the least, because we all had ponies and we spent our life, really, on horseback. My father, of course, was a polo nut. He started the (Oak Brook) polo club in 1922. I was continuously influenced by this polo experience. We had very good fox hunting here on the land. We also had very good bird shooting and steeple chasing. For anybody interested in field sports, it was a heavenly place to be.
”But my most outstanding memories as a child are horses. Horses were the common meeting ground. I think my father`s and grandfather`s love for land also had a very strong effect on me. I spent more time here than anybody did.”
Butler said he spent most of his childhood with his father on the farm that is now a major part of Oak Brook. His younger siblings, Jorie Butler Kent and Frank, were brought up by the mother of the three, Marjorie Childress, in New York and Florida, he said. Paul Butler and Childress, his second wife, were divorced.
But Oak Brook today is very different from the community of Butler`s childhood, which was a dairy farm his father inherited from his grandparents. ”I remember as a child, for instance, 31st Street being a gravel road. And I remember 22d Street being just a two-lane macadam. It was a very country existence. We owned about 16 homes out here. The home my father lived in (on 31st Street east of Spring Road) originally had been a boarding house for the farm. What became the garage was a chicken barn, and the horse barn had been for carriage horses.
”It`s a shame that progress has sort of destroyed the very thing that I loved about it. Oak Brook is not the same–never will be the same. But it doesn`t work to try to hold on to the status quo. What you have to do is find a way to work with it (progress) and put it to work for you.”
The seeds of ”progress” were sown about 25 years before the development of Oak Brook when Paul Butler began buying up additional land that surrounded the farm, which was between 2,000 and 3,000 acres.
”(After those purchases) we owned most of the property from Graue Mill on the south to the (Du Page-Cook) county line on the east, up (north) to 22d Street–almost up to Roosevelt Road. It went as far west as Highland (Avenue). ”A cousin of ours, Stuyvesant Peabody built Mayslake (on 31st Street just west of Ill. Hwy. 83) as a private residence, which was later bought by the Franciscans (Catholic order) for a retreat house. So it meant that between him and my father, a big chunk of land was held. He had about 1,000 acres, and we had at one time about 5,000 acres.”
Michael Butler`s grandparents, Frank and Fannie Butler, lived in Hinsdale. His great grandparents owned and operated a paper mill in St. Charles.
”Julius Butler, my great grandfather, ran a paper store on State Street in Chicago in 1844, which makes it one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the Chicago area. It is now the Butler Paper Co., a division of Great Northern Nekoosa (Paper Corp.). So the principal business of the family was the paper business and ranching in Montana and South Dakota. Then father got us into the aviation business and the electronics business.”
Paul Butler sold Butler Aviation and Butler Paper Co. several years before his death in 1981 because he wanted to concentrate on Oak Brook and its development, Michael said.
Even before Paul Butler built Oak Brook, he began establishing a small community of people who shared his interests. He rented the farmhouses on his property to friends–lawyers, bankers, corporation heads–who had an interest in horses and polo.
”The idea was to have a group of people out here who enjoyed the things he enjoyed. There was a very fabulous esprit de corps that existed.”
Most of the families who made up that early community have now moved away or are deceased, Butler said.
Butler wasn`t involved in the development of Oak Brook, except as an artistic consultant to his father on some aspects of the plans, he said. Paul Butler developed only the residential and recreational areas of Oak Brook. He was instrumental in bringing the shopping center, at 22d Street and Ill. 83, to Oak Brook, but he neither owned nor built any of it.
”My father was a very shy person. I think he was a very loving person, but very shy. He was also very stubborn, and there was no question about the fact that he was the boss. That was never really questioned very much in the family. It had always been that whoever was the head of the family was the head of the family, and that was it.”
Paul Butler was killed by a hit-and-run motorist in front of his home on June 24, 1981. He was 89.
Since his father`s death, life for Michael has been ”a series of frustrations, trying to sort through fact and fantasy about the founder`s
(Paul Butler`s) relationships with the village,” he said. The Butler estate has been involved in several lawsuits over land ownership and development plans.
Family friction also has arisen. Butler is suing in Probate Court to have his siblings, Jorie and Frank, dismissed as co-administrators of the Butler estate, estimated at $100 million. The suit alleges mismanagment.
”There`s really not much of a family left any more. Jorie and I do things together. But I`m really the only one who lives here. Jorie comes in and out and spends most of her time in Florida and Africa. Frank lives in Palm Beach. Actually, I have an elder half-brother, Norman Butler, who lives in Europe. But he`s never spent much time here.”
Butler sees himself as more outgoing than his father and more involved with social and political issues.
”Father and I did not always agree on things. But I would say, without any disrespect to him, that I think I`m more into touching than he. He was brought up in a strict fashion. My grandfather was a strict man, and my great grandfather, whom I never knew but heard enough about, must have been hell on Earth to live with. So I think he (Father) was pretty gun-shy.
”I adored my father, and I think he loved me. It was just that he could not let go–didn`t know how to let go. He was brought up in a different era. When you consider that he was 89 when he died, changes in his lifetime are mind boggling. I don`t think there will ever be that degree of change over (a similar) period.”
Despite the changes in Oak Brook since Michael`s childhood, polo and horses still are a major part of his life. He plays or rides almost every day, no small accomplishment considering that he must swing the polo mallet with his elbow bent. When he was a child, his right arm was crushed when a horse fell on him.
”I would say I spend about half my time on (real estate) development, about one-fourth on polo and one-fourth on other (business) operations.”
A major venture underway is the development of an 18-hole golf course and 400-room hotel on 35th Street just east of Cass Avenue in Westmont.
Further development in Oak Brook by the estate depends on the outcome of two pending lawsuits, one with the Oak Brook Park District and the other with McDonald`s Corp.
The park district sought to condemn 33.5 acres, known as Village Green, at 31st Street and Jorie Boulevard. A Du Page County Circuit Court jury last month set a price on the land at $17.4 million. The park district is seeking a new trial in post-trial motions before the Circuit Court.
”I think the proper way (to develop the Village Green property) is in a campus office park. I don`t think housing belongs there. That was never in the founder`s plan.”
Ownership of another 14 acres on Kensington Road between Ill. 83 and Jorie Boulevard is disputed in a lawsuit with McDonald`s Corp. The Butler estate has appealed a Du Page County Circuit Court decision in favor of McDonald`s.
Butler`s plans for the Kensington Road property would include a village center and a grocery store.
”You can`t buy a loaf of bread in Oak Brook. It`s sort of the Marie Antoinette thing: `Let them eat cake.`
”I would have that (a grocery store) in the (Kensington Road) property where my house is. My house would become a saddle club below (downstairs) and a historical society up above–turn it into a museum. In the shopping center I`d like to get a Kramer`s (Foods) or a major food store–not one of the big, big chains. I don`t think that belongs there. We`ve got a plan for 200,000 square feet in that area.”
Butler moved his house to the property from its previous site near his father`s home in an effort to satisfy a stipulation in a 1980 sales agreement with McDonald`s. The disputed land, across Jorie Boulevard from McDonald`s corporate headquarters, was sold to McDonald`s by Paul Butler and bought back in 1980. The sales agreement stipulated, however, that McDonald`s could repurchase the land if development hadn`t begun in five years. The Circuit Court ruled that moving the house wasn`t sufficient indication of development. In addition to a grocery store, Butler considers multifamily housing another major need of Oak Brook.
”That (failure to provide multifamily housing) was a mistake (of his father`s). No question about it. I think a lot of young people can`t live around here because they can`t afford it.”
This summer Butler plans to build a stable in the Oak Brook Sports Core, which encompasses 269 acres on York Road between 22d and 31st Streets. The sports core, which was sold to the village by Paul Butler in 1977, includes a polo field, a municipal golf course and the Oak Brook Bath and Tennis Club.
”We have permission from the village to build a stable there. We also are going to propose to the village that they seriously consider having an indoor riding hall, to build up a riding academy. That would be good for the children who want to ride–not have it just for polo. If the village wants it, we`ll try to put it together.”
In addition to a revival of ”Hair,” Butler`s plans for the next few years include a try at fashion design and campaigning for gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson. He professes no political ambitions of his own.
”There was a very strong thing about my running for governor about six months ago. I was talked to by a lot of people on it. And I seriously thought about it, but not for long. I like my privacy too much. I think if Adlai is elected, I will wind up working on some things for him.”
Butler ran unsuccessfully for state senator on the Democratic ticket in 1966. He was an adviser to President John F. Kennedy on Indian and Middle Eastern affairs and a special projects director for Gov. Otto Kerner.
On the local scene, Butler sees Oak Brook and Hinsdale as communities with very different characters and a need to cooperate with each other. He thinks they should work together particularly to improve the appearance of an area called the Gateway on York Road between the Graue Mill and the Ogden Avenue intersection.
”I think Hinsdale is the loveliest village in the Chicago area. I like it better than the North Shore. People are more mellow. It`s more of a small town with a homier feeling.
”I would describe Oak Brook as a very aggressive community of yuppies, even though I hate that term. But it does describe a certain group of people. They are very upwardly mobile, aggressive people who live out here, who have made it in Chicago and want to live in the suburbs.
”Oak Brook, which is sort of an upstart, a child of Hinsdale, should coexist as much as possible. The communities are very different, and they could both gain a lot from one another.”
