Say ”Barrington” and people think green.
That word conjures up visions of rolling five-acre estates in the countryside, horses romping in pastures, golf courses, country clubs, forest preserves. And money. Lots of it.
People love to hate that place, but that may be because they are green with envy that they don`t live there, too.
Barrington – the village of, that is – lends its name to many of the communities that later sprang up around it, such as Barrington Hills or South Barrington. The village`s name is also the generic title for the whole 90-acre region, often called the Barringtons.
But the common name doesn`t mean there`s a remarkable resemblance between the village and its offshoots.
Barrington has its own identity. ”Semirural” is what the village officials, and many residents, use as a neat, if not nebulous, label for the town.
Considering where Barrington is, ”semirural” is a good fit. The village, 35 miles from Chicago, is sandwiched between fast-growing northwest suburbs and more remote countryside villages with five-acre zoning.
But the visions of wealth, open space and country living that come to mind with the word ”Barrington” are really just visions when it comes to the village itself. The village of Barrington does not satisfy that homeowner`s dream as North Barrington or Barrington Hills do.
That`s not to say that the village is an unlikeable place; rather, it`s just been given an overinflated image as an address attained only in one`s wildest dreams.
Ray Jahnke, who has lived in Barrington for 80 years and has been the projectionist at the low-fare Catlow Theatre for 65 of them, put it this way: ”The image is wrong to assume that everybody is a millionaire and rich. I mention I`m from Barrington and people say `Ohhh . . . .` But there are people here that make around $15,000 a year.”
Although the village`s median home value in 1990 was $218,100, Barrington Hills and South Barrington had median home values of $500,000 and more.
”You can buy a home starting at $100,000 and go up to $500,000 and still be in the village,” said Marlene Smolarczyk, a real estate agent with Bell and Snell Century 21 in Barrington.
”There is a lot of diversity. There are two-story homes, Victorians, ranches and split levels,” said Smolarczyk.
”This is country and yet it`s not. You know what I mean?” she said, hinting at the semirural label.
In many ways, Barrington is in a terrifically in-between sort of state. It`s remote but not backwoods. It`s slow-paced but not sleepy. It`s small-town but not isolated from big-city services, thanks to Interstate Highway 90 and Metra`s commuter trains on the Chicago and North Western line.
Barrington was designated as the retail, commercial and employment center for the entire Barrington area more than 15 years ago by the area`s planning council, but it is assuredly not urban.
The fast-growing suburbs north of Barrington have mammoth shopping centers, numerous strip malls and a lot of development. Barrington has none of these.
Village planners ”try hard to keep development out . . . not allowing some of these stores to come in,” said Jahnke.
With the help of the Barrington Area Council of Governments, the village has worked hard to protect its careful balance of services and solitude.
”I love this place. There`s a certain percentage of us that stay,” said Jahnke.
He`s right. There is a distinct population of longtime residents in the village, and among those is a growing segment of senior citizens.
Jahnke sat at a table in one of the local hangouts, called Patti & Anne`s Towne Shoppe, a small coffee shop and eatery on Cook Street. Childhood photographs of the regulars, including village President Ted Forsberg, clutter a long shelf in the narrow shop. Longtime residents go to Patti & Anne`s, or to the more frequented Canteen Restaurant, to debate what`s happening on the village board and what should be done about traffic.
Most everyone agrees that traffic is problem in Barrington. The downtown is intersected by County Line Road, Illinois Highway 59 and the Chicago and North Western railroad tracks.
The tangle of intersections makes for long waits at traffic lights and backups for blocks, but no one is sure how to fix it. Widening roads invites more people, threatening to tip the town`s delicate balance toward too much growth.
Barrington`s downtown, a storybook Main Street lined with quaint storefronts and hand-painted business signs, is full of places much like the coffee shop Jahnke frequents: a small, locally owned specialty business.
The most frequented business in town is the Jewel, an out-of-date grocery where any shopper may run into his neighbor, if not his teenager cruising in the aisles.
The Jewel is within walking distance for many residents, and teenagers flock to it daily, having found it a handy meeting place. Until the release of a report by a special commission that is considering opening a community center especially geared toward teens and senior citizens, the youth of Barrington will probably remain in the grocery aisles.
Some villagers complain that they don`t have a larger grocery, or more than one place to shop, and many drive to nearby Lake Zurich for their services. Yet just last year, the upscale Bockwinkel`s Food Market in Barrington closed, not having attracted enough customers into its ritzy, marble interior.
But while residents would like a second grocery, a bowling alley and a hamburger joint where you can get a beer, too, they don`t want more people.
Here, Barrington is trying to find the happy mediumm, because for some there`s been more development in the roughly 6.5-square-mile village than they care to see.
”People don`t want all this stuff in here,” said Ruth Munson, 79, who is a Barrington native. ”There`s been more come in than they`d like. They can`t keep it out. What are you going to do?
”We`d like to keep it small town. That`s why everybody wants to come here,” said Munson, an archivist at the Barrington Area Historical Society whose brother is a regular for morning coffee at the Canteen.
Munson`s parents moved to Barrington as newlyweds, and her father, like many then, worked on the railroad. ”They were the working class and practical people. They`re getting fewer and fewer. Every time you turn around, there`s another lawyer here,” she said.
Munson`s sentiment reveals another issue for the village: People want to come to Barrington, but once there they don`t want to let anyone else in.
”Everybody wants the address, but then they say, `Don`t put anything in may back yard,` ” she said.
Considering Barrington`s assets, it`s no wonder outsiders want in.
The village has an active school system, and well-kept parks and forest preserves. The Citizens for Conservation, a local volunteer-based conservation group, has worked hard to protect some of the village`s natural highlights, such as Bakers Lake, a nesting place for herons and other waterfowl.
For a village its size, Barrington is filled with clubs and civic organizations.
The newest organization to spring up in the village is the Citizens Advisory Group. It was formed in June to oppose the proposed commuter line for the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway into Barrington.
Barrington, which was born from the extension of a railroad, is now hotly opposed to the latest such proposal.
In 1854, the northwest extension of the Chicago and North Western Railroad, known then as the Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad, was the impetus for the village`s beginnings, according to records at the Barrington Area Historical Society.
Metra`s proposed commuter line, to run from the Aurora-Naperville area to Barrington, would make traffic tieups worse in Barrington, invite unwanted development and may not even be needed, says the organization.
For the same reasons, many residents are also against the proposed Fox Valley Expressway being run east of the Fox River and through the Barrington area.
The group was formed because ”homeowners are saying, `Wait a minute, we have the right as citizens to control our destiny,` ” said Forsberg.
”When residents say they want a rural-type atmosphere, I believe them.”
