Classic Country Estates of Lake Forest: Architecture and Landscape Design 1856-1940 (Norton Professional Books for Architects & Designers) Book

A look at the luxurious homes of Lake Forest, Illinois, from the high period of the country estate. Lake Forest, Illinois, thirty miles north of Chicago on the western shore of Lake Michigan, has been one of America's elite residential communities for one and a half centuries. Spread across the edge of lakeside bluffs and along deep ravines, hundreds of elegant country estates house the families of Chicago's commercial, professional, and cultural leadership—the greatest concentration of American country estates to be found between the two coasts. Lake Forest architecture and landscaping reflect a significant interplay of leading practitioners and design theories spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book offers a tour of the houses, landscapes, gardens, gentlemen's farms, and country clubs that have made the community a landmark of architectural and landscape design. Architectural renderings, landscape plans, drawings, and period photographs of architecture and gardens, many of them not previously published, illustrate the work of these masters and the fabulous lifestyles of a bygone era. 290 illustrations, 16 pages of color.Read More