Orland Park is moving closer to turning a 60-acre farm into a destination that gives visitors a glimpse of what life might have looked like 100 years ago when there were fewer shopping centers and more farmland in the area.
The village bought the historic Stellwagen farmstead northeast of the intersection of 108th Avenue and 179th Street for $6 million in 2002 under a life-estate agreement that let members of the Stellwagen family, who ran the farm since 1860, continue living on the property.
Now that no family members are living on the site and much of the building restoration is complete, the village and the Stellwagen Family Farm Foundation are starting to work on the next phase of their plans: creating a living history farm offering public educational and recreational opportunities, said Orland Park Development Services Director Karie Friling.
Village officials and the foundation, a nonprofit established to preserve the remaining farmland, are seeking proposals from consultants who can help develop a master plan for the heritage farm, Friling said, including aspects the village can’t handle in-house, such as a plan for farming the site.
“There’s a lot of things we’re good at, but that’s not one of them,” Friling said. “We need some expert advice, and it was a smart move for the foundation to begin that process.”
Jim Stellwagen, a member of the foundation’s board who said he’s part of the fifth generation of Stellwagens who have farmed the site, said their goal is both preserving family heritage and introducing the community to a part of Orland Park’s history and a way of life with which many people today aren’t familiar.
“It was a dream of my father’s that it would be a place of education for the community. There aren’t a lot of places like this anymore,” Stellwagen said.
He said the foundation wants farming to continue at the site, possibly using older farm equipment the family has kept so visitors can see what farming entailed in Orland Park’s early days. The foundation is also considering a visitors’ center with educational signs, Stellwagen said, but stressed that it will be a real, working farm, not just a museum.
“It’s a fun opportunity to demonstrate that even though Orland Park is 75 percent built out, we’re still preserving some special places so our kids and grandkids can see what life was like,” Friling said.
Friling said 2015 will likely be a “planning year” but there will still be plenty of work underway.
Engineers are working on plans for a bike path that will circle the property and the village will solicit bids to finish restoration work on the farmhouse within the next few months, said village spokesman Joe La Margo.
According to documents in the request for proposals for a master plan, the village plans to return the farmhouse to what it would have looked like in the 1930s or 1940s. Stellwagen said they’ll furnish it with family antiques and other items donated by supporters.
Though it’s a work in progress, Stellwagen said the community was given a taste of what’s to come with tours led by Stellwagen family members, offered for the first time last fall. The tours will return this summer and fall, he said.
“We’re really excited so many people in the village are interested in learning more and we’re looking forward to having more opportunities to show the place off,” he said.