New Tower Rises On Village Hall

July 04, 1995|By Denise Thornton.

Lake Bluff — When the tower on Lake Bluff's Village Hall fell into disrepair during the Depression, the town was too poor to patch it up.

For safety reasons the 17-foot turret was removed and capped, and the hall sat there with a stubby top for 60 years.

Replacing that tower became the unanimous choice of Lake Bluff's Centennial Committee, said Frederick Wacker, village president. Wacker said the $75,000 needed to replace the tower was raised by mailing just one letter to each resident.

But that was the easy part. Recreating the tower turned out to be tricky, said David Graf, chairman of the Tower Restoration Committee. The original 1905 drawings and specifications had been lost. Graf said the architects used "old photos and did some mathematical gyrations" to create their plan.

The final stage of research involved climbing into the remaining brick part of the tower that had been boarded up since the 1930s.

The original tower was a wood frame with stucco panels and a metal roof. Its replacement is aluminum with a micro-zinc roof that will weather to a pewter patina in about a year, Adams said. Graf said he hoped the newly replaced tower would last until Lake Bluff's bicentennial.

Lake Bluff's history goes back far before the Village Hall was built, Wacker said. The area was settled and farmed in the 1840s. In the 1870s, Methodists made the area into a summer camp meeting.

Lake Bluff was a popular stop on the rail line between Chicago and Milwaukee, and long before it was incorporated, thousands of people visited its hotels each summer. Many bought lots where they could camp or build cottages.

The new tower will house a carillon that will ring each day from noon to 6 p.m. with Westminster chimes. The dedication is set for 8 a.m. Tuesday, with the carillon playing a rendition of "God Bless America."