Vine-Oakwood-Green Bay Road Historic District

Twenty modest houses on East Vine Avenue, North Oakwood Avenue and North Green Bay Road make up this Lake Forest neighborhood, laid out on a simple grid west of the railroad tracks. Homes date from the 1860s to 1926 and show a progression from Italianate to Queen Anne, early modern stucco, and classical and medieval revival styles. Most are two stories, set back about twenty-five feet on half-acre lots, along narrow streets with grassy parkways, large trees and gas streetlamps. Notable works include a Medieval Revival house by Hugh Garden and the 1913 Clow House by David Adler, an early product of the Adler-Dangler partnership. The district matters because Lake Forest is otherwise known for large estates and curving streets. This neighborhood housed the tradespeople, clerks, postmasters and estate workers who served the community, along with several early settler families. Commercial and apartment development had reduced the original residential area to less than a third of its nineteenth-century size.