Edith Foster Farwell: Lake Forest's Garden Sage

Edith Foster Farwell’s interest in herbs began with a simple cost-benefit analysis. She and a friend ordered plants from a well-known herb grower in Washington D.C. to sell at a Lake Forest Garden Clu...

Onwentsia Club: Social Center from Golf to Horses

Following the Lake Forest Golf Club's 1895 season, increased enthusiasm led Lake Forest golfers to look west, beyond Leander McCormick’s property, so a proper 18-hole course could be built. They purch...

Growing with Lake Forest: The Cascarano Family

For generations, the Cascaranos had lived in the Valenzano province of Bari, Italy, located in the southeast along the coast, about 250 miles from Rome. In 1896, a young tree trimmer named Antonio Cas...

Ike Colburn: Too Modernist for Lake Forest?

Ike Colburn was born in Boston in 1924. He attended Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh and Yale University. Colburn came to the Chicago-area in 1951 at a time of post-war growth. He worked for Schweikher and...

Lake Forest Flowers: Growing with the Community

The origins of this business date all the way back to the earliest days of Lake Forest. Frank Calvert was born in Scotland in 1830 and immigrated to Chicago as a young man. He was one of the earliest...

Annette Hoyt Flanders: Cottage Garden Designer

Milwaukee-born Annette Hoyt Flanders earned her degree in Botany from Smith College and continued her studies at the University of Illinois.  After attending the 1916 Lake Forest Garden Club summ...

Ellen Biddle Shipman: Dean of Female Landscape Architects

Ellen Shipman started out as a hands-on gardener and received drafting instruction from the offices of architect Charles A. Platt, a neighbor of hers from Cornish, New Hampshire. By 1910, Ellen Shipma...

Transforming Landscape: Rose Standish Nichols

Boston-born Rose Standish Nichols, (1872-1960) was one of the country’s earliest professional garden designers.  She trained with Charles A. Platt, studied horticulture at Harvard and drawing at...

Helen Brown Milman: Landscaping Market Square

Landscape designer Helen Brown Milman (1887-1987) was a student of Ralph Rodney Root at the University of Illinois. In addition to teaching, Root was an author and estate garden designer. In 1916, Hel...