Travel back in time to the spring of 2006 and you would have found more than 100 homes on the Village of Wilmette’s list of pending and approved demolition permits. We documented them at the time in five separate Flickr albums:
East Wilmette, from Green Bay Rd east to Lake Michigan.
East Central Wilmette, from Green Bay Rd west to Ridge Rd.
North Central Wilmette, from Ridge Rd west to Hibbard Rd, north of Lake Ave.
West Central Wilmette, from Ridge Rd west to Locust Rd, south of Lake Ave.
West Wilmette, west of Locust Rd south of Lake Ave, and west of Hibbard Rd north of Lake Ave.
Teardown activity in Wilmette and other North Shore suburbs came to a virtual halt with the collapse of the real estate market, but it’s on the rise again. Forty-one demolition permits were pending or approved in Wilmette in 2013.
The home pictured above is at 442 Beverly Dr. Like many of the homes being demolished it dated to the late 50s or early 60s, had become functionally obsolescent, and was only about a third the size of the home that’s likely to replace it.