Does anybody use the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” anymore? Even if the expression has become a cliché, the concept is still, at the risk of using another hackneyed term, fresh as a daisy.

Competition among homeowners to have the biggest, the best and the most is an old story, but it’s one that continues to have a life of its own. While the mainstream real-estate market is all gloom and doom, the upper brackets seem to get more extreme with each passing day.

Bathrooms with steam showers, heated floors, semi-precious stone surfaces and gold-plated fixtures? So 1990s. Kitchens with top-of-the-line stainless-steel appliances and custom-fitted cabinetry? Even spec houses have those. Home gyms? Ho-hum. If you want to make the neighbors jealous, you’ve really got to step it up a notch – or three.

Swimming pools are not exactly stunning news, but in a climate like Chicago’s, they are so impractical as to border on the idiotic. Although technology has improved the maintenance equation – most pools don’t need regular service visits from the pool man – owners still only get three to four months of usage per year, and the cost of keeping the water warm is rising with the same velocity as gasoline prices. Even more extravagant – and rare – are indoor pools, which require not only ample square footage, but even higher heating bills.

That’s why a combined indoor/outdoor pool on a large compound in Barrington Hills is in a category of extravagance by itself. It almost doesn’t qualify as an amenity in a single-family residence: The property is populated by various branches of an extended family, and the pool area is really more like a private swim club.

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"Urban-suburban" village builds new downtown around Metra stop

story and photos by Michael Austin

Say what you want about Evanston's quasi-urban bustle and Kildeer's bucolic serenity. Residents of Morton Grove, at least a significant number of the 22,451 people who live there, think it offers the best of both worlds. (more…)

KB Home offers luxury houses minus maintenance at Creekside

by Dan Schuyler

What do today's new-home buyers want in floor plans, finishes, landscaping and architecture? Before KB Home began building houses in suburban Chicago, the company surveyed scores of recent buyers to answer this question. (more…)

CBI Custom Homes sweats the details for $3.9 million Tudor in Glencoe

by Dan Schuyler

When you cast an eye over design-build firm CBI Custom Homes' stunning period-specific houses, you're reminded of the quotation from 19th century Chicago architect Daniel Burnham displayed on the company's Web site, CBICustomHomes.com: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." (more…)

Story and photos by Michael Austin 

Despite building, rising prices, Long Grove, Kildeer maintain pastoral presence on Chicago's fringe 

Hear ye, hear ye. This is the tale of a quaint little village lost in time, less than an hour's drive, via modern combustion engine vehicles, from downtown Chicago.

With its covered bridge, its downtown settlement and throwback-sounding Robert Parker Coffin Road, the village of Long Grove is nothing short of a living museum. The key word there is "living," because while the village hosts several festivals throughout the year, it is also a place where people actually live and shop and eat and work in beautifully restored Victorians and other historic clapboard buildings, some dating back to the mid-19th century. (more…)

Can a quaint village retain its charm despite growth and inevitable teardowns?

These days, the old water tower in Northbrook is a clean slate, conspicuously devoid of the famous message it carried 20 years ago: "SAVE FERRIS."

Can anyone tell me if the boy has been saved?

Anyone…anyone…?

The truth is, he never really needed saving; he was faking it all along.

Legendary filmmaker John Hughes wrote the faux-sick Ferris Bueller into existence and took us along on his topsy-turvy journey through his hometown of "Shermer, Illinois" and its neighboring metropolis, Chicago, on one glorious day of high school hooky in 1986. Hughes faked it too. He turned his lens on the very real Northbrook and called it "Shermer," a recurring setting for his movies. (more…)

Colorful Web site fills online void, covering North Shore housing, neighborhoods

Illinois has three ZIP codes where the median price of a home is more than $1 million, according to Zillow Blog, and – no surprise here – they all happen to be in the tony North Shore. What is surprising, given the upscale nature of these northern suburbs and the lavish homes that line their streets, is the near total lack of real estate coverage online for Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe and the other 'burbs that comprise "the Shore." (more…)

Highwood now a hotspot in shadow of Highland Park's upscale homes, downtown

Here's a trip for you. Make your way up to the north side of Highland Park, where it touches Highwood, and sit yourself down at Pancho Viti's for a margarita, some warm tortilla chips and house-made guacamole (keep your eyes peeled; you could see former Chicago Bulls star Toni Kukoc having dinner at the next table, as we did.)

You wouldn't do yourself any harm by staying at Pancho Viti's to eat dinner, but if you did you would miss the trip. So push away from the table, as difficult as you might find that after the pleasingly tangy shrimp seafood cocktail, and walk next door – 12 or 15 steps, tops. There, you'll find yourself in a completely different world, one called Miramar, the Cuban-French bistro-bar-disco hotspot that serves delicious food and dangerously palatable mojitos.

So in this very succinct trip you get three countries (Mexico, Cuba, France), two cities (Highland Park and Highwood: you step over a crack in the sidewalk and you're in a new town), two restaurants, and one restaurateur, Gabriel Viti. (more…)

Des Plaines earns new image with housing, retail and a model downtown

The story of Des Plaines, at least this story of Des Plaines, starts and ends with a hamburger.

It was 1951 when The Choo Choo opened there (still in business at 600 Lee St.), and 1955 when Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's franchise just down the road. The retro McDonald's drive-in at 400 N. Lee St. is now a museum directly across from a working McDonald's, and, as long as we're talking, a White Castle.

But it was December of 2005 when Jimmy Buffett loaned his famous song title to Des Plaines' latest carnivorous incarnation, Cheeseburger in Paradise, which sits smack dab in the town's Metropolitan Square development, a mixed-use project bringing new life to a previously tired business district. (more…)

"Country" town now a booming 'burb where new homes pass $1 million

Years ago, before everyone had 150 channels to flip through, a television commercial for a car dealership in Libertyville had a catchy jingle: "Weil Olds in Libertyville - the beautiful place in the country!"

You probably are hearing it right now; that's how those jingles work.

"We're not in the country anymore," says Brad Forsberg, who has lived in Libertyville all of his life, most recently at 118 First St., in a historic neighborhood a few blocks from downtown. The house is for sale, as Forsberg and his wife Donna have moved to downstate Mount Vernon to be closer to their grandchildren. They were back in town recently to check up on their property, a white two-story house with three bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms and an enclosed front porch, listed at $383,900. (more…)