Citizens for Conservation moved its headquarters to Hill ‘N Dale in 2025, taking advantage of an existing building on site. The views are spectacular and staff can witness changes to the landscape in real time, Abigail Derby Lewis said. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)
By Patty Wetli | WTTW News
First-time visitors to Barrington Hills must think they’ve taken a serious wrong turn somewhere. Between the horse-crossing signs and ubiquitous white rail fencing, this neck of Chicago’s north suburbs could easily be mistaken for Lexington, Kentucky.
It’s equestrian country here and Hill ‘N Dale horse farm was a long-established part of the area’s culture, but in 2022 the property was put out to pasture.
The Barrington-based nonprofit Citizens for Conservation (CFC) purchased the 232-acre parcel with the intent of returning the farm to its native wetland and prairie habitat. Last year, the organization moved its headquarters to what’s now Hill ‘N Dale Nature Preserve — repurposing an existing building — in order to gain an understanding of the land’s seasonal rhythms and to witness changes in real-time.
“This is the best office anyone could ever ask for,” said Abigail Derby Lewis, CFC’s executive director. “We’ll be in a meeting and suddenly you’ll hear the sandhill cranes and we’ll all just jump out of our chairs and go and take a look.”
Some of the first restoration work at Hill ‘N Dale involved removing a horse track and 20 miles of fencing. (Courtesy of Jeff Chemelewski)
After just a handful of years under CFC’s volunteer-led stewardship, the landscape already appears noticeably altered. A large viewing tower, horse track, paddocks and more than 20 miles of fencing were removed in short order to create a contiguous space. Over the past 18 months, efforts have picked up pace.
“When you’re listening, the land will tell you what it wants,” Derby Lewis said. “So, we’re beginning that slow roll.”
This year, burn crews conducted the first prescribed fires to see how plant communities responded. And this past spring, CFC dug out 10 acres of drainage tiles, the first phase in what will be the lengthy process of reviving natural wetlands along the section of Spring Creek (part of the Fox River watershed) that snakes through Hill ‘N Dale.
“Being able to see the amount of some of these native plants that are coming back as we remove that drain tile, having more of those wet areas and seeing what the seed bank is bringing up … it only spurs and energizes and inspires people to do more,” Derby Lewis said.
Additional plans include creating a community hub and increasing the nature preserve’s public visibility and accessibility. Currently the preserve is open Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
But deliberate is the name of the game, especially in these relatively early days.
“This is a long game. This is a multi-decade restoration,” Derby Lewis said.
There are still surveys to conduct of existing wildlife — like the macro- and microinvertebrate populations in the creek, and amphibians and reptiles — before tackling larger projects.
“You need to know what’s already here because when you start changing — when you start putting fire to the ground, when you start seeding — you need to know whether you’re going in the right direction. And the animals will tell you that,” she explained. “So what kind of patterns or shifts that you see will help to inform the management moving forward.”
Citizens for Conservation is restoring grassland in the middle of Barrington’s horse country. (Nicole Cardos / WTTW News)
Hill ‘N Dale was previously owned by the Duchossois family — a prominent name in Chicago’s business and philanthropic circles. (The family maintained ownership of the farm’s northern section.) The nature preserve is located less than 15 miles from another recently unloaded Duchossois property: the 326-acre Arlington Park, which the Chicago Bears bought in 2023 for $197 million, ostensibly as the future home of a new stadium.
By comparison, Hill ‘N Dale’s $10 million price tag sounds like a steal. For CFC, though, the purchase was a huge stretch, but one worth taking given how few properties of that size come on the market, Derby Lewis said.
Donors contributed half of the needed funds and the remaining $5 million came in the form of the largest grant ever awarded by the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation. And then CFC was off to the races.
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