History of Maple Park

Long before Lake Geneva became a summer retreat, the land at the center of Maple Park was set aside for the whole town to share. When Thomas McKaig drew up the original plat of Lake Geneva in 1837, he reserved this square as a public common, a New England custom carried west by the area's Yankee settlers. Once called Central Park, the green became the anchor of a neighborhood that has grown up around it for nearly two centuries.

The first homes here were modest by later standards. According to the Wisconsin Historical Society and the National Register of Historic Places, the earliest went up in the late 1840s and 1850s, mostly in the Greek Revival and Italianate styles popular with the town's founding families. That changed after the Civil War. Wealthy Chicago families discovered Lake Geneva as a summer escape, and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 sent even more of them north. Grander homes followed, and most of the district we see today was built between 1870 and 1920.

The original home at 930 Geneva Street dates to 1870, right at the start of that transformation. In 2022, it began a new chapter. The builder preserved the shell of the original house and carefully added an almost entirely new home behind it. The result honors more than 150 years of Maple Park history while offering everything today's buyers expect. It's a home that belongs to the neighborhood's story and is ready for the next one.