Far off the beaten track, nestled in the northern corner of Ford County and 30 miles southwest of Kankakee, sits the intentional community of Stelle.
What makes this tiny town of 94 people–ranging from young couples and Baby Boomers to seniors–special is their enthusiastic adherence to a green philosophy: They own two utilities that harness renewable energy and many residents have environmentally friendly homes that are comfortable, energy-efficient and cost-effective.
Its curving streets (the 40-acre unincorporated community has only three) are dotted with 45 traditional single-family homes and townhouses, whose landscaped lawns include flower and vegetable gardens.
Green belts throughout the development create a spacious feeling. Basketball and sand volleyball courts occupy the end of one street, while a two-acre apple and pear orchard and pond rest in the distance.
The community doesn’t have a gas station or mini-mart, but it does own a mutual telephone company, cable TV system, and municipal well and water treatment center. The Stelle (rhymes with bell) Community Association (SCA) has monthly dues of $42.50 per living unit. The dues cover garbage pickup, a mail box in the Community Center, maintenance of streets and sidewalks as well as the water company in addition to maintenance and assessments.
However, fire protection is provided by the local Kempton Fire Department (five miles away), though every home has at least one fire extinguisher, and law enforcement is under the jurisdiction of the Ford County Sheriff. Fire and police protection are paid as part of county taxes.
To foster a sense of togetherness, residents gather twice a week at the Community Center for neighborhood lunches.
“We lived here less than three months and we knew everybody. Every person I met had this warmth and openness and friendliness about them that you just don’t see in a lot of places,” says Mark Wilkerson, 39, who’s lived in Stelle 3 1/2 years with his wife, Rhonda, 33, and their sons Drew, 4, and Brandon, 8 months. “We would not hesitate to call any of them if we needed help, a hand doing something.”
“If you’re trying to find a safe place to live, there are easier locations. There’s a subtle something else as to `Why Stelle?’ and it’s that lifestyle,” says Steve Bell, 45, who’s resided in the area with his wife, Janet, 42, for 11 years. “It’s not an ideal thing,” he adds, referring to the typical spats between neighbors. But, it’s “to a much smaller degree than you find normally. We’re not the hottest thing around, but I like what we’ve got.”
Stelle was founded April 1, 1973, by the Stelle Group, which purchased a 240-acre farm. The non-profit group, which formed in the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park 35 years ago, takes is principles from the 1963 book “The Ultimate Frontier,” which, among other things, predicted a global cataclysm in 2000. The Stelle Group wanted to prepare for the coming calamity.
Initially Stelle was a closed community, but in 1980 some residents who were ready for a change from the group’s rigid dogma, which initiated the transition to an open community. That transition was completed two years later when the Stelle Group handed over governing authority to the Stelle Community Association. Today, only four people from the original Stelle Group live in Stelle.
By the late 1980s, however, misinformation and rumors about Stelle contributed to a 20 to 25 percent drop in property values. The area was neglected by real estate agents until 1991, when local homeowner Susan Fisher became a licensed agent. In one year, she sold four homes and the following year appraisals started climbing. Currently, annual property value growth is about 6 percent.
Recently, three homes were on the market, including a 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath town home for $58,900 (1996 property taxes were $1,540) and a 2,300-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bath single-family house for $65,000 (property taxes were $1,900). In addition, developed lots, already supplied with water and sewer lines, are available for around $7,500 (quarter-acre lots for single-family homes) and $12,000 (third-acre quad lots for multi-family dwellings).
But the attractive prices don’t guarantee sales. Fisher, 43, and a 21-year resident, says many people won’t drive to Stelle’s isolated location. That distance, however, doesn’t bother everybody.
While most folks work within Kankakee County or are entrepreneurs, 20 people run home businesses, and every day nine people commute more than an hour one way to work.
“You have to turn (the commute) into something where, `I’m going to enjoy my drive to work,’ ” says nine-year resident Josh Langsdale, 51, a controls engineer who drives 150 miles roundtrip each day to his job in Summit, a near southwest suburb of Chicago. “It sometimes gets very tiresome, there’s no doubt about it, but I know what the other trade-off is. I’ve lived in those other communities.”
The rural environment also places Stelle’s residents at the end of ComEd’s service line, which means periodic blackouts, brownouts and voltage spikes. But Stelle’s green energy awareness has alleviated some of those problems. In 1993, the town installed the nation’s first off-the-grid, photovoltaic-diesel generator hybrid telephone company. The following year, they put in a 120-foot, 10-kilowatt wind turbine to run the water company, reducing grid dependency.
Some residents have taken their green philosophy even further. Of the 45 homes, 19 are super insulated and use passive solar designs (large, southern exposures and Thermopaned windows allow direct sunlight to warm parts of the home) to cut heating and cooling costs. Fisher’s husband, Ken, 45, who owns Fisher Builders, was the general contractor on two of them, including their 1,750-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bath tri-level home, which was built in 1988 and cost $90,000.
Three and a half miles southwest of Stelle, Jon, 42, and June Haeme, 36, and their 6-month-old son, Jared, live in a 1,500-square-foot, three bedroom-two-bath straw bale home.
Jon, a self-employed carpenter, designed the two-year-old, super insulated house (200 bales of straw as well as $40,000 in materials) with passive solar heating (the living room and kitchen floor is a large concrete-tile thermomass, which absorbs the sun’s direct heat and releases it through the day and night). The walls are made of 18-inch straw bales with an inch of stucco, yielding an insulation of R-40. If necessary, a woodburning stove provides extra heat. A two-foot overhang shields the home from the summer sun. The house is valued at $120,000.
These energy-efficient methods have slashed winter electric bills to $40 to $45 a month and reduced summer ones to $20 a month.
The Bells’ 2,200-square-foot (3,500 with garage and basement), two-story traditional style four-bedroom 2 1/2-bath home also uses the sun as well as the wind to keep them comfortable. Apart from super insulation and passive solar energy applications, the Bells, who built the house in 1987, spent an extra $30,000 on a photovoltaic-wind hybrid energy system (which will pay back in 15 to 20 years) that powers 90 percent of the home, including two freezers, a 22 cubic foot refrigerator/freezer, sump pump, color TV, stereo, microwave, all their lighting needs and anything else they plug in the wall). They’ve eliminated heating bills and cut air conditioner use to a few summer days.
Remember that March 9 blizzard? Most of Stelle was in the dark. But not Bell.
“I didn’t even know the power went out. I was listening to the stereo. Life is good,” says Bell, 45, a technical consultant for SunWize Technologies, a solar equipment distributor with an office in Stelle. “Some neighbors stopped by, we made up some cinnamon rolls and coffee. We sat around listening to tunes, and I spent part of the day talking to a neighbor about putting a system in for him.”
Stelle’s Earth Day celebration, April 26, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., will showcase the phone and water companies, energy exhibits, and home tours, including the Bells’ and Haemes’.
For information and directions, call SunWize at 800-683-4837.
