The boonies. You`re moving to the boonies.
That`s what Mary Roycroft`s friends in Chicago told her more than 30 years ago when she and her husband, Edward, were thinking of buying a home in newly incorporated Vernon Hills, then a speck so tiny that no one could even find it on a map of the wilderness that was southern Lake County.
Roycroft could hardly argue with them. Vernon Hills was the boonies in 1960, consisting basically of a handful of homes, a couple of apartment buildings and a golf course that hooked onto a small hotel.
A night out for the 120 or so townsfolk was spent watching the stars twinkling without intrusion from artificial light. After all, Vernon Hills had but one street lamp. And much of the landscaping, such as it was, was shaped out of mud.
But, hey, even then this place had something very important going for it. ”The reason everybody moved out here in the beginning was that it was what we could afford,” Roycroft said. ”Back then, you could buy a home here for no down payment and $100 closing costs. And they were good-size houses. It was a smart move financially.”
And, of course, no one had to worry about overcrowding. They did have to worry, though, about commuting to jobs 35 miles away in Chicago without benefit of public transportation. They had to worry about traveling as far away as Waukegan or Niles or even back to the old Chicago neighborhood to shop, even for groceries. No mega-malls here. Not then.
Today, of course, Vernon Hills bears little resemblance to that remote outpost of three decades ago.
With sprawling Hawthorn Center, which recently underwent a $9 million renovation, and three smaller shopping malls expected to generate $3,767,953 in sales tax revenue in 1991, an increase of more than 200 percent in the last decade, Vernon Hills` 15,319 residents enjoy the rare security of knowing that their village, which currently has an $8 million surplus, is, and should remain, financially in the pink.
Hawthorn draws shoppers from throughout the north and northwest suburbs. With the addition of Rivertree Shopping Center, Hawthorn Fashion Square and Townline Commons, all completed since 1987, there is hardly a good that is not sold in one of the more than 325 retail shops.
”Towns that rely on, say, Motorola or Chrysler, if there`s a lack of demand, that town`s hurting,” said village manager Larry Laschen. ”Here, we`re so diversified – not only in retail but also in our business parks- that a slowdown in one or two or three segments probably won`t hurt us that much.”
In the beginning, though, nobody pictured Vernon Hills as a shopper`s paradise.
Initially, developers Quinn Hogan and Barney Loeb envisioned a village that would be built from the ground up, rather than one incorporated from part of another community. They bought from nurseryman Gordon Clavey, who owned a good portion of the land that would become Vernon Hills, built some homes and apartments around a country club and got Vernon Hills incorporated on July 16, 1958. It had 123 residents.
Not surprisingly, not much happened here except that the well-heeled from other suburban areas would often spend weekends at the hotel. Renting a room there also would buy a weekend membership at the 18-hole course. But after police closed down a nearby gambling operation, much of the tourist trade soon dried up.
Vernon Hills was chosen over the name ”Forest Hills.” City fathers figured enough suburbs already had ”Forest” tagged somewhere in their names so they switched the Forest to Vernon, named after the township in which it was located.
By 1970 Vernon Hills had 1,050 residents, but it had no commerce to speak of, it had no village hall, and its police force consisted of a handful of part-time officers who picked up a few extra bucks after working full-time shifts in other villages. By this time, its developers had gone bankrupt and Clavey had bought back much of the original property.
Officially, the village kept offices in the hotel, but most business was conducted from longtime clerk Joanne Korstanje`s basement.
So informally was the town run, that it bothered Korstanje and her family not one bit when a neighbor would interrupt their Sunday dinner with business that needed to be done.
”At least I enjoyed working at home,” said Korstanje, who served as village clerk for 22 years. ”It wasn`t unusual for somebody to walk in during our Sunday dinner and say they wanted a vehicle sticker. My husband and (five) kids were used to it.”
It was a quiet little town that was literally going nowhere.
”The village didn`t grow for 10 or 15 years, partly because of the bankruptcy and partly because of zoning ordinances we were putting in,” said Bob Shaw, a longtime resident and member of the village board in its early days. ”Still, we positioned ourselves so we would be able to control the development that came in.”
Residents, small in number though they were, were doing what they could to lay the foundation for a solid community. They built the town`s first park, Kiddie Korral. They got Clavey to donate vacant property on which to build, raised money for playground equipment and put it all together.
”It`s still very close to our hearts,” Roycroft said.
Townspeople started the Halloween parades, the pet parade, the July 4th festivities, the midsummer carnival and the community-wide Labor Day weekend picnic that drew nearly 700 people to its 29th renewal earlier this year.
Only in 1973 did Vernon Hills get a park district, which now oversees 177 acres of land. It is also building a community center that is scheduled for completion early in 1993.
The village government moved into two portable buildings in 1971 and nine years later bought its current facility, a former golf clubhouse. For $350,000, Vernon Hills also got possession of a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, a 28-acre park and a swimming pool.
The former clubhouse is undergoing a $500,000 renovation. A new $3.2 million police station is in the works, and the fire station is undergoing a $1.4 million facelift.
Roycroft and her early neighbors could buy a nice home for $15,000. By 1980, the median home price was $91,900, and by 1990 that price had risen to $140,500. More recent home-building permits indicate the average existing single-family home value is more than $175,000 and the average new home value is $247,000.
The latest census indicates that only 2 percent of the village`s homes are valued at more than $300,000, but if village officials have their way, those numbers will rise dramatically. Unlike during its first quarter-century, Vernon Hills, whose residents now enjoy a median family income of $45,395, is actively seeking the upscale buyer.
”Originally, they wanted to make a place the working guy could afford in Lake County,” said Laschen, who has been in town since 1973, first as its police chief and, since 1983, as its village manager. ”In the past if you wanted to move up, you had to move out, but now we want to upgrade the housing stock.”
The village doubled in size between 1982-86, annexing more than 1,100 acroes and approving more than 1,100 home sites, much of which is still being built. Today village government, which consists of a president and a six-member board, wants to see no more multiple housing units. Now Vernon Hills is looking for the upscale buyer.
Grosse Pointe Village and Hawthorn, developments built on land annexed in the mid-1980s, offer homes that sell in the $275,000 to $350,000 range, as do Sugar Creek and Old Oak Farms. And if the 1,200-acre Cuneo Estates, annexed in 1988, is developed as planned, well-heeled townsfolk could soon conceivably move into a $1 million home in their own community.
Vernon Hills might have remained the sleepy little town that it was in 1970 – except for a strip of land just off Illinois Highway 60.
Developers wanted to build a huge shopping mall on this unincorporated land. They went first to Libertyville asking that community to annex the property. Libertyville hesitated. When Vernon Hills officials were asked the same question early in 1971, the 60 acres were annexed before anyone had a chance to change his mind.
Hawthorn Center, with 1.2 million square feet of shopping space, opened in 1973. Ever since, people have come from miles around to shop till they drop. And, of course, to deposit so much sales tax revenue in Vernon Hills`
coffers that the village levies no property tax on residents for city services.
”I felt like if we were going to get the potatoes, meaning the traffic and all the headaches connected with that, we might as well get the gravy, too,” Roycroft said. ”That was the tax dollars. We would have had the traffic problems no matter what, but we wouldn`t have had the money. So even though people complain about the traffic, at least we have the money to operate the village.”
With Hawthorn`s rise, Vernon Hills would never again be the sleepy little community where everyone knew everyone else. Instead, they would just know almost everyone else.
”I`ll be honest, I don`t know everybody anymore,” Korstanje said.
”It`s not quite the same. But it`s still very nice.”
In the last six years, Vernon Hills, which now occupies 7.1 acres, has nearly doubled in size. It has annexed two business parks, Corporate Woods and Continental Executive Park, which have room for for 450 firms and 125 acres of retail space. Developers at both sites are required to contribute land or cash for parks and are required to ring the property with bike trails.
Vernon Hills also has strict sign control ordinances. It allows no metal buildings, and it requires landscaping at the malls to try to hide parking lots from passing traffic. It has even banned the use of aluminum siding on homes.
But to the residents who live safely insulated from the noise and bustle of the retail and industrial sector, Vernon Hills is still just a small town. Sure its population increased 56 percent since 1980 and is expected to reach 22,000 by the year 2000, but it has managed to maintain its sense of community.
It still has no commuter train service, but a site for a potential train station is ready to build on should Metra expand service.
Today, rather than having to leave town to buy a quart of milk, Vernon Hills residents could choose never to leave it at all. Now they can live in one of the half-dozen residential subdivisions and work at one of the four major shopping centers or in one of the two business parks. They can walk or take the bike path that snakes throughout the village to a nearby restaurant or movie.
”Vernon Hills is like a little city,” Laschen said. ”You can live, work and get all your necessities here. If you wanted to, you`d never have to leave the village.”
And a lot of folks never do.
”I personally think our town is the best,” Korstanje said. ”I`ve been happy here since the day I got here. I`ve told my kids I`m going to die here.”
Added Roycroft: ”We`ve made lifelong friends here because it`s that kind of community. It`s a community that still today pulls together when necessary. Even people you don`t know all work together for a common cause.”
Call it a little city. Call it a 45-minute drive to either Chicago or Milwaukee. But there is one thing that no one can ever again call Vernon Hills: the boonies.
