Inverness IL (Palatine, Wilmette, Lake Forest: houses, neighborhood, school district)

[teeforepar1]

We're are looking at moving to Inverness IL. Some nice houses in our 400-500k price range.
How are the people that live there? Is it snooty like the northshore? Is it good for family? Lots of kids?
How's the park district? I would imagine its hard for little kids to ride their bike with no streets.

[chet everett]

I really don't think the North Shore is particularly snooty, though I do think that there is a high degree of correlation between folks who choose to live in a area with a great deal of physical separation between homes and folks who prefer not to interact much with their neighbors. In my experience folks who are shopping for a home in an area of Wilmette, Winnetka, Lake Forest or otherr nicer suburbs in Cook, Lake or DuPage Co where homes are laid out along accessible streets in grid really do want to have traditional neighborhood while those looking at gated communities / private roads / isolation prefer NOT to have neighbors that "know all about my comings and goings"...

That said the schools of Inverness do reflect the level of accomplishment of the well-off families that live there, with the numeric standing of high schools like Stevenson being very hard to find fault with, as well as the feeder schools. The "kids per block" factor is not nearly as high as someplace like Hinsdale , but it is better than someplace like Oak Brook where the twisty bicycle paths are pretty exclusively used by fitness minded adults. Also, unlike Oak Brook, there is a smaller group of residents and businesses to support things like the excellent Village owned / run Sports Core and lavish aquatic center / tennis facilities run by the Park District that Oak Brook is known for, they do have a nicely programmed facilty -- Inverness Park District

For a budget of $400-500K Inverness probably is a better value than other towns like Long Grove / Kildeer / Deer Park, but depending on individual home(s) it is certainly worth cross shopping as none of these towns (save Long Grove's historic core) really a distinct edge / weakness ...

[cubssoxfan]

Chet, I don't think Inverness feeds into Stevenson. This from Wiki: Public schools are managed by either Barrington Elementary and High School District 220 or Palatine Elementary School District 15 and Township High School District 211.
The 211 high school is Fremd, which is pretty well regarded.

[chet everett]

Doh! I was thinking "Lincolnshire" when reading Inverness! My bad, the values of Inverness are more inline with the rest of the Palatine schools like Fremd, which while not a bad school at all is far less desirable than Stevenson. The park district stuff is of course correct, but cross shopping Lincolnshire against Long Grove / Deer Park / Kildeer is going to give signficantly different benchmarks than cross shopping Inverness against Palatine OR the portion of Inverness served by Barrington. The think too is that there is a core of Palatine that is sorta charming,but it is further off the beatan path than say the core of Barrington so it does often get overlooked...

[pvande55]

As I read this, the thread on Robbins, a rundown suburb on the south side, appeared just above this one on an exclusive suburb on the northwest side. What are the chances?