The Lake Forest Showhouse 2025

The 2025 Infant Welfare Society Lake Forest Showhouse & Gardens is a majestic 3.5 acre Lake Forest estate built in 1895 and originally named Pembroke Lodge. Built on top of a small ridge, the house is beautifully sited. The main block of the house is a rectangle of smoothly finished Wisconsin limestone with classic detailing, including a heavy dentilled cornice and a baluster above the attic dormer windows. 

 

Notable architect Henry Ives Cobb built the home for real estate and zinc mining entrepreneur David Benton Jones. (Jones was also one of the five developers of Lake Forest’s Market Square—the nation’s first planned shopping center.) The property stayed in his family for 67 years until Robert O. Lehmann, a descendant of one of Chicago's early retail families, bought it in 1962. 

 

Cobb mixed timeless architecture with English walled gardens, a reflection pond, and a limestone domed gazebo. In 1935, David Adler renovated the interiors and designed the pool house and gated pool for Jones’s daughter, philanthropist Gwethalyn Jones—the first president of Three Arts Club of Chicago. Visionary designer Frances Elkins created the interiors for Gwethalyn. The paper she installed in the home’s entry was recently uncovered.

​

The 15,000 square foot, 30 room mansion includes a hand-carved paneled living room, 8 bedrooms with ensuite baths, 11 fireplaces, a game room, and large primary bedroom suite.  The pool house and pool showcase statues and tiered limestone patios.  Adjacent is a tennis court and warming hut.