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By David Hanson

A Community Guided by Green Principles

Prairie Crossing in Grayslake, Illinois (north of Chicago), combines urban, suburban, and rural experiences to set a new standard for responsible neighborhood development.

Community Profile
Where: Grayslake, Illinois, 40 miles north of Chicago
Average House Price: $330,000
Home Size Range: 1,600 to 3,500 square feet
Green Space: about 60 percent is protected open land
Website: prairiecrossing.com

Home on the range just got easier, for the people and the prairie. Clustered cottages resemble homesteads overlooking historic hedgerows, native prairie and wetland grasses, trails, and 90 acres of organic farmland. In its native setting, bluestem grows chin-high. Kids ride their bikes to the on-site public elementary school, and residents buy their produce at a farm market. And the picture-perfect pastoral has an urban side: The Metra train to downtown Chicago takes just over an hour.

photography: Matthew Gilson
A pioneer of the U.S. Department of Energy's "Building America Initiative," Prairie Crossing's homes use as little as half the energy of similarly sized Chicago residences.

Forty miles north of the Windy City, the decade-mature community of Prairie Crossing combines the best of suburban and urban with a deep-rooted connection to rural natural history.

In the seventies, a developer swooped in and bought up many small farms here, but some concerned neighbors, including printing mogul and conservationist Gaylord Donnelley, banded together and resisted plans for a "conventional" build that they feared would destroy the countryside. After a long court battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court (but settled in 1986), Donnelley and seven other neighboring families bought the property and established the Prairie Holdings Corporation, Prairie Crossing's developer.

George and Vicky Ranney, a former business executive and landscape historian, respectively, then later conservation developers in the Chicago area, took over after Donnelley's death.

"So the owners asked us the question 'How are you going to develop this better than the conventional way?' " says Vicky. "That led us to establish the 10 guiding principles."

photography: Matthew Gilson
The Prairie Crossing Charter School serves two local school districts, another way of integrating the surrounding community. Rather than a boxy, windowless school "factory," the buildings have a warm, inviting feel that matches the neighborhood's architecture.

Those guidelines have governed the project ever since: environmental protection and enhancement, healthy lifestyle, sense of place, community, economic and racial diversity, convenient and efficient transportation, energy conservation, lifelong learning and education, aesthetic design and high-quality construction, and economic viability. Because it's a conservation community, two-thirds of the land is protected in an easement that prohibits any development and affords the 359 single-family homes a sense of space and a connection to the natural world as well as to neighbors.

photography: Matthew Gilson
Residents can hop the Metra train for a smooth one-hour ride to downtown Chicago. That traffic-free, auto-free connection enables commuters to maintain jobs in the city without an energy-consumptive car ride.

Ten miles of trails connect housing pockets to the farmland, school, community center (in a restored barn), parks, two train stations and their adjacent retail square, and the 22-acre Lake Aldo Leopold in the middle of it all. Most uniquely, perhaps, the Metra train stations allow residents to switch gears and go all-out urban in Chicago.

"We used to live in a different development near here, and we never went into the city," says Dawn Gehring. "Now we have a pass to the aquarium, and we take the kids down there all the time. It's so easy."

The only principle proving difficult is racial and economic diversity. Even with varied home prices and marketing efforts, the community reflects the surrounding county's predominantly white demographic. And houses, which start at $189,000, mainly represent the middle of the economic scale, says Vicky. But she and George, the other original investors, and the restored prairie can be proud of nine out of 10 goals met, all 359 homes sold, a high-achieving public school, and a community that's becoming a model for conscientious developers nationwide.

10 Guiding Principles of Prairie Crossing
1. Environmental protection and enhancement
2. Healthy lifestyle
3. Sense of place
4. Community
5. Economic and racial diversity
6. Convenient and efficient transportation
7. Energy conservation
8. Lifelong learning and education
9. Aesthetic design and high-quality construction
10. Economic viability