Elawa Farm Historic Preservation Master Plan

Lake Forest, Illinois

Elawa Farm in Lake Forest is a 128-acre estate farm designed in 1917 for A Watson Armour by Alfred Hopkins and David Adler. The master plan envisions the careful restoration of these Georgian Colonial Revival buildings and their adaptive re-use as a community center for the surrounding 576-acre Middlefork Savanna nature preserve, the city’s Elawa Park and a planned community of 60 single-family homes. The first phases of this staged master plan have restored the buildings’ exteriors, created a public events and education space in the farm’s main barn and the city’s wildlife education center. In the adjoining Elawa Park, a picnic shelter with a massive stone fireplace uses the typical materials and forms of Midwestern farm out-buildings to evoke Elawa’s agrarian heritage.