To celebrate National Historic Preservation Month, we are pleased to present this online program focusing on the extraordinary Black Point Estate, located on the shore of Geneva Lake in Wisconsin.

Historic preservation is difficult under the best of circumstances. During this presentation you will learn how Black Point was preserved despite numerous challenges, including legal opposition, over a ten year period. Since 2005, it has been owned and operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, which opens it seasonally for tours. You will also learn what amazing architecture was lost around Geneva Lake and why historic preservation can be an asset to any community.

Come one, come all! We are inviting all our arts-and-crafty community members to a Visioning Town Hall! As we at Glessner House explore how we might expand our arts and culture programming for our community (i.e., YOU), we want to hear about your interests and experiences. Please join us for snacks and beverages, and a facilitated visioning session in our Coach House to help us with our planning.

Who: Anyone interested in, or curious about, arts and culture offerings for you or your family (no specific experience required - all perspectives are welcome!)

What: A fun chance to meet fellow community members, enjoy some treats, and offer input into how Glessner House might serve the community through arts and culture programming in the future.

Join us at the Kenilworth Assembly Hall, designed by George W. Maher in 1907, and recently restored to its original grandeur, as we celebrate the 160th anniversary of the birth of this important Prairie School architect. Architectural historian H. Allen Brooks once noted, “His influence on the Midwest was profound and prolonged, and, in its time, was certainly as great as Wright’s.”

The event will include abundant food and beverage (including the iconic Homer’s ice cream, a North Shore tradition), and a chance to view the “Century Homes” exhibit at the Kenilworth Historical Society across the street, which features many houses designed by Maher, including his own, completed in 1893. Attendees will have a rare opportunity to step inside the log cabin playhouse built by Kenilworth founder Joseph Sears for his children, when his family lived across the street from the Glessners on Prairie Avenue in the late 1880s.

In April 1949 - exactly 75 years ago - author Arthur Meeker published his novel Prairie Avenue. The characters in the book may have been fictional, but were little more than thinly veiled depictions of Chicago’s business and social leaders of the late 19th century, who Meeker and his parents counted among their neighbors. Born at 1815 S. Prairie Avenue in 1902, Meeker absorbed the world around him, and in Prairie Avenue presented Chicago’s glittering Gilded Age, as it existed from the 1880s to the early 1900s.

This presentation will be given by William Tyre, Executive Director and Curator. In addition to the discussing the book itself, Tyre will explore the three generations of Meeker’s family who called the neighborhood home, the book’s reception, and the real people that served as inspiration for the novel’s engaging characters.