Places to Reflect: Tents, Cottages and Hotels

Tents were used to house campers for the first two to three summers of the Lake Bluff Camp Meetings. As the camp meeting became more popular, wooden summer cottages were built. An advertisement boaste...

"New" Hotel: Destination Lake Forest

Location: Mayflower between Rosemary and Maplewood, along Lake Michigan

Location: Mayflower between Rosemary and Maplewood, along Lake MichiganIn its first decade, much of the early development of Lake Forest wound its way through the forest and shied away from the lake....

Deer Path Inn: Staycation and Vacation Luxury

For the new Deerpath Inn opening on Illinois Road in 1929, proprietor Edwin Burgess envisioned a modern, well-appointed hotel, larger in scale than the previous Inn, a converted house, yet still archi...

Deerpath Inn Fire: "Too Much Headway to be Stopped"

On the morning of July 6, 1938, flames engulfed the entire top floor of the Deer Path Inn. One newspaper called it the "worst fire in Lake Forest's history." According to accounts published in the Lak...

"Old" Hotel: The Hotel that Launched a Community

Walnut and Washington, Lake Forest

Location: Westminster and Walnut, Lake ForestEveryone knew the place to be was the Lake Forest Hotel in 1858. When the three-story, white frame structure opened in the summer, it was the prospective t...

First Deerpath Inn: From Boarding House to School to Hotel

The Deer Path Inn had its beginnings as a private home on Illinois Road. The original building was constructed in 1869 as a home for the Colonel William Sage Johnston family. In the 1890s, the family...

Lake Forest map, 1861