A Sledding Hill for Lake in the Hills?

It definitely is not the season for sledding, but future plans for an old dairy farm in Lake in the Hills includes a hill meant just for that purpose.

The Lake in the Hills Village Board in April approved a revised master plan for the Kreutzer Farmstead property at 5962 Grafton Farm Drive that includes a sledding hill.

But the highest hill on the property currently faces Miller Road, posing a safety hazard for sledders, said Trudy Wakeman, parks and recreation director for the village of Lake in the Hills. 

“There’s been a lot of erosion, and there are some boulders that need to be moved around,” Wakeman said. “We will have to look at that in the future, and possibly redesign it.”

At the top of the sledding hill stands a red chicken brooder, one of 12 buildings that once stood on the Kreutzer Farmstead. Baby chicks were fed and warmed in the brooder, that has round walls so the chicks would not suffocate, Wakeman said.

The brooder has suffered some vandalism, and a piece of plywood covers one side.

The Kreutzer family moved into their farmhouse in 1948. They stopped dairy production in 1996, and most of the buildings were removed by 2000, Wakeman said.

The land was donated to the village by a developing company around the same time that the village acquired the land that is now Sunset Park.

To learn more about the master plans for the Kreutzer Farmstead, which inclues a disc golf course, visit this Lake in the Hills Patch article.