Churchill Woods Buildings Spurring Forest Preserve to Rethink Policy

The DuPage County Forest Preserve District is considering reevaluating its policies for preserving and operating its historic structures, with the McKee house and neighboring building in the Churchill Woods Forest Preserve serving as a key recent example of how Forest Preserve buildings have been neglected, the Daily Herald reports. 

According to the paper, the District has approved an architectural study in an attempt to save the buildings, which were the District’s administrative office and home of its first superintendent, Robert McKee. Other DuPage structures, like the Kline Creek Farm (West Chicago) or Oak Cottage (Naperville) are also examples of decaying District property. 

"Historic structures have not had, in my opinion and experience, a visible place or role within the mission of the forest preserve," DuPage Forest Preserve commissioner Mary Lou Wehrli admitted to the paper.

"You poke your head into a window of the McKee House or Oak Cottage and you look at the deterioration that takes place because the forest preserve does nothing.” 

The Churchill Woods buildings have been subject to a vocal preservation campaign since the District first announced its intentions to tear them down back in 2006, a campaign led by the Citizens for Glen Ellyn Preservation and McKee’s granddaughter, Barbara Plumer. 

“They (the buildings) are DuPage County and Forest Preserve history as well as American history," Plumer told the Chicago Tribune in October. "They were built through (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt's New Deal and should not be torn down but honored and used." 

A letter to Glen Ellyn Patch, also in October, from resident Lee Marks urged Village voters to support candidates who support preserving the buildings.