National Preservation Month helps build awareness for the David Adler Music and Arts Center

May is National Preservation Month and this year's theme is "Discover America's Hidden Gems." Communities from all over the country are filled with beautiful treasures that are unseen to the world around them. The David Adler Music and Arts Center in historic Libertyville, Illinois is one of those gems. In lieu of National Preservation Month, the center will be giving tours of the historic Adler Estate.

The David Adler Estate at 1700 North Milwaukee Avenue, Libertyville, Illinois was the residence of architect David Adler. He lived there in the 1864 farmhouse from 1918 until his death on September 27, 1949.

Although he continually made changes to his property, the major changes were made in 1926, 1934, and in 1941, during the property’s period of historic significance. In 1926 he built a garage; in 1934 he added a two-story section to the servants’ cottage, connecting it to the barn on the second floor. In 1941, he added a two-story section connecting the servant’s cottage to the remodeled farmhouse and moved a dining porch that he added to the house to the east end of the new addition. At the same time he remodeled the interior of the servants cottage, converting the servants bedrooms on the first floor to a pantry and kitchen.

The house currently looks much as it did when Adler died in 1949. The estate is located on the east side of Milwaukee Avenue, a major north-south thoroughfare that forms Libertyville’s main street. The house is approximately 20′ from the street, with the 1918 remodeled farmhouse, the servant’s cottage and the barn forming a “U” shape around a courtyard. The historic property is reported to have once included 240 acres and extended east to the Des Plaines River, as well as south on property now managed by the Libertyville Park & Recreation Department and north where a school is currently located. There are extensive remnants of the formally landscaped grounds to the east of the property that Adler first laid out in 1918. These extend to the edge of a road at the east end of the historic property and include formal gardens at the back of the house and allées that extend both east- west and north- south. Adler is known for his eclectic approach to the architecture of estate houses, and that is certainly reflected in his own home. The house is predominately Colonial Revival but has Classical Revival and French Renaissance Revival elements, as well as numerous signature design features.

Today, the historic property, nominated to the National Register of Historic Places on November 22, 1999, includes the home and 11 acres.

All of the public spaces are intact, and the major historic features remain. In 1981, Adler’s grandnephew David Boyd donated a considerable amount of original furniture to the house. The property continues to reflect Adler’s eclectic approach to architecture, his great sensitivity to proportion and design and reflects the relationship of his home to the many others that he subsequently designed.

Tours will be happening throughout the day Monday - Friday 10:30 am - 3:30 pm.

$5 a person.

For more information on the David Adler Music and Arts Center call 847.367.0707 or visit www.adlercenter.org