Village Hopes to Hear Greater Specifics on Stonebridge Development

officials hope to hear greater specifics on the at Monday night’s Village Board meeting.

Bob Hidey, of Robert Hidey Architects based in Irvine, Calif., is expected to address the Village Board on potential changes to the layout of Stonebridge. Hidey’s name was introduced at the Jan. 9 Village Board meeting by Peter Kyte, principal of The Roanoke Group, which is Stonebridge’s financing partner and project owner.

“He is one of the well-known land-use architects,” Kyte said. “They are very comfortable working with less acreage. He’s going to have no problem bringing the character of Lake Bluff to this development.”

At the Jan. 9 meeting, The Roanoke Group introduced its new team after , which originally was brought in last year to lift the 55-and-older age restriction from Stonebridge. The new team included Northeast Collaborative Architects, an architectural firm specializing in creating mixed-use buildings from historic properties; Highland Park architectural historian Susan Benjamin, and Paul Haden, founder of The Collaborative West, a landscape architectural firm, and Hidey.

Together, they provided hints of changes they would like to make to the layout of the proposed development, such as:

• eliminating some of the cul de sacs to create bigger lots;
• moving away from a large parking structure to more scattered parking;
• eliminating large townhomes for smaller single-family homes.

Need to Change Approach

Kyte said from the start of his talk before the Village Board that the original concept for Stonebridge was wrong and was more reminiscent of a real estate market prior to the 2008 crash.

“We stopped listening to the market, kept building bigger,” Kyte recalled. “We didn’t think about floor plans, we didn’t think about how people would live. We thought if we built it, someone would buy it.

“The more I looked at this development (Stonebridge), it’s clear to me if we had continued in this process, we probably would have made the same mistake,” he added.

Kyte noted the tract home approach at Stonebridge went against the makeup of Lake Bluff’s neighborhood design

 “This isn’t a community that’s used to tract homes,” he said. “This is a neighborhood. We had to make some changes. This is a special community. There are some great pieces to this community.”

Enhancing Historical Structures

Specifically, Kyte focused on the landmarks of Stonebridge — the Howard Van Doren Shaw manor home and carriage house, and the Jens Jensen landscape design.

“We need to go back to why it is special,” Kyte said. “We plan on using this project as a trademark moving forward, so it’s important we do it right.”

John Grosvenor, the founder of Northeast Collaborative Architects, said engineers are pouring through the design of the manor home and carriage house trying to determine a cost of mixing residential use with a public-use facility.

“The historic homes have many, many pitfalls that you won’t know until they are fully disclosed,” Grosvenor said. “We are trying to find out the best way to make this project happen. There is a lot of work that has to be done on this facility."

Kyte agreed that the two structures hold the first key to success of the development. “We need to do something to these structures or we won’t be able to sell houses out there,” he said.

Capturing What Jensen Had in Mind

The natural landscape that Jen Jensen originally designed for the property needs to be brought back into play, Haden said.

Items such as the prominent green lawn piece as you drive into Stonebridge and reconditioning the site for a trail system. “We want to bring the idea of indoor/outdoor living,” Haden said.

In addition, after being prompted by trustee Joseph Josephitis’ question, Kyte said they plan to remove the dead trees and clean up the portion of the property facing Green Bay Road.

“We’ve done a good job of cleaning up the interior of the property,” he said. “We would like to get in there and clear that buckthorn out — hopefully, within the next month. When buckthorn is cleared out, you will see a pretty dramatic change in terms of growth relatively soon. You will see grass in May with no seeding, which will make a much more attractive visual.”

Diverse Housing Choices

Kyte believes a diversity of housing choices will make Stonebridge more attractive even in a tough real estate market. There are already four model homes on the property, and Kyte indicated he wanted to keep them.

He said homes would start at $550,000 for a 2,100-square-foot house to the high $800,000s for 3,000-square-foot homes that could be built on the western portion of the property. Some could sell for $1 million, he said.

“We want to offer a lot of different price points,” he said, “and give everyone an opportunity to live here.”

However, Trustee Kathy O’Hara reminded Kyte of the original sale document, which indicated a cap on how many housing units would be built.

“That is what we based the whole sale on, and we’re going to hold you to that,” O’Hara said.