It’s known as the Farmstead, a tight cluster of old, weathered buildings on the side of a hill, the highest point in its part of McHenry County.
On top of the hill is a grand view, and one can see the housing developments slowly encroaching from the west.
Earthmovers are currently grading the latest phase of the Meadowbrook subdivision, removing a huge dirt pile one bucket at a time. Graders are spreading a clay bottom for a retention pond near the dogleg where Haligus Road turns west and south.
The last farmer to work the Farmstead was a tenant who abandoned the property in 1991 when the land was purchased by Palatine-based Concord Development Corp.
Concord, the developer of Meadowbrook, recently deeded the Farmstead property to Lake in the Hills, sparking the first glimmer of hope for a rebirth of this turn-of-the-century showplace.
“There is so much work here, it’s daunting,” said John Perron, a member of the Lake in the Hills Historical Society. The society is proposing that the 22-acre Farmstead be restored as a living monument to 19th Century farm life.
The site, Perron said, could serve as a destination for schoolchildren and others eager to learn about the agrarian way of life that was prevalent 100 years ago.
Undisturbed for years, the farmhouse and outbuildings have since been overrun by burdocks, briars, nettles, chokecherry and ailanthus. Branches of juniper bushes, unpruned, have popped up like old couch springs, obscuring the farmhouse’s front entrance. Opossums and raccoons are living in the outbuildings, and black wasps have built nests in the rafters of the corncrib and chicken coop.
And a large black cat is on the prowl.
Perron said the farm was first settled in 1856 as a homestead. The first farmer on record was H. Dennis, whose name Perron has found on an 1872 land deed on file at the McHenry County Historical Society in Union.
Subsequently, the farm was purchased and worked by the Kreutzer family, who rebuilt the farmhouse on the original field-stone foundation after the old one burned to the ground in 1932.
The outbuildings–barn, corncrib, smokehouse, milk house, chicken coop, brooder house, threshing house–are all original and are structurally sound, according to Perron. He said the only building that needs to be razed is the hog barn, where the concrete walls are tipping off the foundation.
Living on a farm is a hard life, said Perron, who as a small boy lived on a farm near Fond du Lac, Wis. Perron said there are examples of “German engineering” that made the daily grind less difficult on the Farmstead.
“I found this ingenious method that was used to keep the troughs full,” Perron said. “Water was pumped by hand into an above-ground cistern and piped into the dairy barn. When the cows would drink, lowering the water level, the troughs would automatically fill from the cistern . . . I’ve not seen anything like this and doubt that this was ever patented.”
The smokehouse, located downhill and to the east of the farmhouse, is still redolent. Its inner boards are charred black and smooth. Once inside, one can still detect the odor of curing hams.
Perron would like to see the village’s parks department take over and run programs out of the barn. The farmhouse could be an office. Some of the land could be farmed by volunteers.
Although the Lake in the Hills Parks and Recreation Board, an advisory panel, was cool to the idea, Village President Scott Berg and Trustee Mike Meyer support the historical society’s plan.
Perron and Meyer said what is needed is a huge volunteer effort, like the one that worked to restore the village’s oldest structure, the Labahn-Hain House on the shore of Woods Creek Lake. For that effort, the historical society sought corporate sponsors and volunteer labor.
“I think it’s a worthy undertaking,” Berg said. “I just do not know how far the volunteer effort will take us. At some point, professionals will have to get involved, especially when it comes to restoring that big barn.”
The project is still in the planning stages, and not everyone is gung-ho for restoring the Farmstead.
“I haven’t been out there to look at the property yet,” said Trustee Ed Plaza. “I understand it will be extremely costly. I’m not in favor of spending an inordinate amount of money for restoration.”
