Chicago ‘Burbs are the Best

Between the winter and the wind, Chicago is never going to be on my wishlist to call home full time. It has all of the culture and food of NYC, but it’s cleaner, friendlier, and a little less overwhelming. As much as I love wandering in the city, I had a hefty wishlist outside of it too. There are plenty of gems and great daytrips with an hour or two of metro-Chicago.

En route to Chicago last summer, I finally crossed Wheaton College and Wheaton Illinois off my wishlist. My branch of the Wheatons founded Wheaton, Illinois several generations ago. My dad lost his last parent last year, and while cleaning out my grandma’s house he found my grandfather’s handwritten genealogy tracing us back to Warren Wheaton, one of the founding brothers of Wheaton, Illinois. I made the most of my quick stop and marveled at so many things with my name on it! Lyssa isn’t exactly the kind of name you can find on amusement park souvenirs, so this was a very novel experience for me. Even if you don’t share a name with the town, it’s lovely, quaint, and full of interesting history.

I wandered around Wheaton College, the lovely main street, and even found my great-great-great-great grandpa’s house. My favorite part was the Dupage County Historical Museum which had model trains through a precious replica of the town, and timely exhibits on the women’s suffrage movement and America battling epidemics. It was a total trip and I spent an ungodly amount of money in the school bookstore grabbing souvenirs for my family.

The Thompson Strawberry Farm caught my eye on instagram last year. They have u-pick fruit, a pumpkin patch, corn maze, and out of this world sunflower fields. I somehow timed my trip for a weekend where they didn’t have any blooms so I didn’t make it after Wheaton as planned last year. Sunflowers are my little sister’s favorite flower, and despite a little lactose sensitivity we both LOVE cheese, so it wasn’t a hard sell getting her to go to the dairy state to see some flowers and snack on cheese curds. We stopped at Brat Stop thanks to a cheese sign you can see from space. It felt like a creepy church basement rec room inside, but it was just the right amount of weird to fuel up for the farm down the street. We skipped the corn maze and raspberry picking because it felt like the surface of the sun when we got there. We picked our share of the world’s cheeriest flowers, and tried not to sweat to death in the flower fields. They have an exceptionally long sunflower season with staggered blooms from July-October, it’s only 40 miles outside of town, and if they build it you should come ;) Anyone that drags a beautiful old upright piano into a sea of sunflowers and zinnias wins my vote for a valuable life experience.

Speaking of valued life experiences….John Hughes was an integral part of my childhood. I’ve watched many of his movies so much they are permanently emblazoned on my brain. Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Home Alone are all desert island movies for me. Chicago is practically a main character in all of these iconic coming of age films, and I was thrilled to visit with a car and time to kill. Ferris Bueller was written as a love letter to the city, so it was no hardship to reminisce in the Art Institute, my Rookie of the Year loving heart was also happy to drive past Wrigley Field en route to the suburban oasis of Northbrook. Glenbrook North High School, John Hughes’ alma mater, was the one Ferris Bueller worked so hard to avoid. The halls are the ones the nerd, princess, jock, criminal, and basketcase run in The Breakfast Club, and the football stadium is where John Bender gives that iconic fist pump as he walks off into the sunset. Before you leave Northbrook, you should head to the Northbrook Library to see the John Hughes Plaque and take a look at the water tower. It no longer beseeches you to Save Ferris, but it should still make you smile. Just a few miles away, Maine North High School stood in for The Breakfast Club’s Shermer High School. Now it’s the Illinois State Police Station, and thanks to COVID you can’t go in without a municipal appointment (or arrest,) but supposedly there is a plaque commemorating the film inside.

Fun fact: the Bueller House is actually in Long Beach, California. I grinned like a fool on their sidewalk while in town for a conference a couple years ago. So don’t look for it in Chicago, but if you’ve made it to the suburbs to see the infamous high schools there are plenty of other famous houses for you to see. Over in Highland Park, Cameron’s modern ranch has been renovated almost beyond recognition. No flying Ferraris to be found, but sits in an unbelievably gorgeous affluent neighborhood. It’s right around the corner from Jake Ryan’s Tudor house from Sixteen Candles. The Glencoe Union Church is where Jake Ryan picks up Samantha after her sister’s muscle relaxed wedding. There are a significant amount of Frank Lloyd Wrights in this area, so add them to your google map too if you are so inclined.

Last but not least, the McCallister Mansion in Winnetka was thrilling for us. If you haven’t seen the Netflix Movies that Made Us special on Home Alone, watch that before you come. We didn’t have time for all of the Home Alone sites, but we managed to meander over to the Trinity Methodist Church . Despite lacking a nativity scene with a mischievous McCauley, it was worth a stop. I wish I had known that the interiors of the church were shot in Oak Park at Grace Episcopal, directly across the street from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple. I looked right at it and admired its exterior, but never made it inside. I guess I need to make it a point to get inside both churches on a return trip.

Oak Park is pretty spectacular. Even if you aren’t a #wrightsite weirdo like me, it’s a great place to wander and walk. You can purchase tickets to tour the interiors of the Bach House and Robie House, but you can respectfully admire 25 commissions from the sidewalks of Oak Park. I was actually in town on the day of the annual Wright Plus Art Walk, a rare opportunity to tour several additional private homes, but it sells out really quickly. Be sure to sign up for the mailing list so you can get notified when tickets go on sale if that’s something you want to prioritize. They just announced that next year’s Wright Plus Art Walk will be on 5/21/22.

The Enhanced Home & Studio Tour (with audio guide for the 8 early houses in a walkable cluster from the studio) is a fantastic way to start your adventure. Our volunteer tour guide was SPECTACULAR, and we had so much fun learning about the early days of Frank’s life and career. His home was where he tested his ideas and developed his iconic style. There is a LOT to learn roaming the halls and standing under the behemoth Ginko tree that inspired so much of his work. Nature, Music, Froebel Blocks, Japanese woodblock prints, and his mentor Louis Sullivan were Frank’s greatest sources of inspiration. You can really see and experience how they come together here, and it is absolutely worth the two hours to soak it in.

I suggest doing some homework with this excellent outline and adding each of the houses to a google map. Located in the Frank Lloyd Wright District, it’s a pretty compact expedition to view them all. It only took me about 90 minutes to do drive by visits to the entire list. I was stunned by several, surprised by the beauty, oddity, and normalcy of some of these historical homes. These houses were built as Frank Lloyd Wright was developing his style and launching his own firm. The are enough common themes and wildly different examples to keep things interesting. If you only have time to see a couple, I suggest: the Gale House since it was a prototype for the cantilevered Fallingwater, or as Edgar Kaufmann Jr often referred to his childhood home, Fallingwater, Rising Mildew. Winslow House is the one I’m dying to get inside, and the beautiful FLW gate to the street was lovely. Moore House is a total headscratcher, and more than a little horrifying with its odd mix of tudor, mayan, and gothic features. Huertley House, Hills House,Thomas House, and Frick were my favorites and quite lovely. Go ahead and skip the Smith House (you can’t see much of it from the street) and the Davenport House once had a lot of leaded glass but it’s not being very well maintained and just made me sad.

Oak Park is also a significant visit for fans of Earnest Hemingway, you can see his birthplace and childhood home. You can’t go far without seeing beautiful old Victorian houses. I saw significantly more painted ladies in Sacramento and San Francisco, but Oak Park has Queen Annes and storybook tree lined streets. It feels like magic in the air, and a particularly special place to build a life.

There was so much to see outside of the city, I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface. There are quite a few Wright Sites in the northern suburbs left to visit, and I’d still really like to make it to a Cubs game. Who’s with me? If I were a Chicago Suburb, I’d have just one thing to say to you.