Experience the remarkable history of Chicago’s Buena Park with longtime resident and historian Scott Vermillion as your guide. This online presentation takes its title, “Up Yonder in Buena Park,” from the opening line of Eugene Field’s poem The Delectable Ballad of the Waller Lot, which helped immortalize the neighborhood in verse.

The story begins with the Waller estate known as Buena, which gave the neighborhood its name, and follows the evolution of Buena Park through the people, architecture, landmarks, and events that shaped its character over time. While traces of that past remain in the Prairie-style homes along Chicago’s landmark Hutchinson Street District, Scott will take you beyond them to uncover hidden gems and little-known stories largely lost to time.

Many volumes have been written about Chicago’s finest houses designed by architects ranging from H. H. Richardson to Frank Lloyd Wright. But what about the everyday buildings in which the majority of us live? Chicago Homes: A Portrait of the City’s Everyday Architecture, published in 2025 with text by Carla Bruni and Phil Thompson, and hundreds of pen-and-ink illustrations by Wonder City Studio, is the first comprehensive book about Chicago’s residential architecture and the stories that shaped it.

Why are Chicago lots so narrow? How were Chicago’s alleys used before we had cars? What exactly is a “greystone”? The authors combine their decades of experience in historic preservation and illustration to create a resource that answers these and other questions about what makes a home a Chicago home.