Geneva

Just a couple miles west of the downtown of Gevena, Heartland is a collection of subdivisions offering a mix of housing types, from single-family homes to townhomes, in a quiet and private setting. Heartland residents are still part of Geneva proper, where Fox River or the many local restaurants downtown that attract people to the area are just a short drive away, but the privacy of the subdivisions means residents can escape when tourists discover the town during its annual festivals. With the shopping center and the hospital on the eastern side of the neighborhood, residents can stay close to home while running errands and still maintain a quiet and peaceful suburban atmosphere. “There’s a feeling that you get when being in the Geneva community,” says broker Mark Coleman with Coleman Land Company and Geneva resident. “It’s beautiful, and it's idyllic.” Most of Heartland’s subdivisions showcase New Traditional homes along streets and cul-de-sacs lined with young trees. Sidewalks along both sides of the road allow people to take afternoon strolls or walk with their furry friends through their subdivision. A few of the communities have more than just single-family homes, like the Fisher Farms subdivision, which also features New Traditional townhomes. The matching style for the townhomes creates a homogenous look, so residents visually feel part of the community. Homes here list between $500,000 and $625,000, while the townhomes list between $350,000 and $400,000. For kindergarten through fifth grade, students attend Heartland Elementary. After, students can attend one of two middle school campuses, which are determined randomly when students reach the second grade. One of these is Geneva Middle School North. Both it and the elementary earn an A-minus from Niche. The other middle school is Geneva Middle School South, located on the same campus, and receiving a B-plus from Niche. Geneva High School offers students Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Niche grants it an A ranking. Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital sits in the southeastern corner of the community, for easy access to medical care for Heartland residents. However, the proximity means that residents in Fisher Farms might hear first responders are they come and go. When heading beyond Heartland into downtown Geneva for a night out, Lincoln Highway can take people the 3 miles. This thoroughfare is also lined with grocery stores. Downtown Chicago is about 47 miles away for commuters, while Chicago O’Hare International Airport is 42 miles away. Downtown Geneva has a Metra that connects downtown, but those visiting the town for events tend to use this transportation option. Heartland has several neighborhood parks in its individual subdivisions, like Don Forni Park, where residents can stroll along the walking trail or play at the baseball diamond. At Peck Farm Park, the 385 acres feature six soccer fields and three baseball diamonds, but also 5 miles of trails that loop around the park’s lakes and prairies. Hawks Hollow Nature Playground is a sensory playground that encourages kids to play with water features and musical elements. To the north in St. Charles, Mt. St. Mary Park offers kayakers access to the Fox River. With Heartland just a couple of miles from downtown Geneva, residents can head here for a local dining scene. “Now, downtown Geneva is known as the quieter Naperville—Naperville on a smaller scale,” Coleman says. “Try to find a parking spot in Naperville on a Friday night, and it’s a problem. Geneva and St. Charles are only just starting to get like that.” Livia Italian Eatery specializes in Northern Italian cuisine. Hacienda Real Geneva brings a modern dining atmosphere to the town and serves unique Mexican dishes. like octopus. On the northeastern side of Heartland, Geneva Commons has chain stores like Barnes and Noble and Dick’s Sporting Goods. For groceries, Meijer, Jewel-Osco and Costco are within 2 miles and accessible along Randall Road. Every year, Geneva hosts Swedish Days in June, featuring a parade, carnival rides and live concerts in its lineup. In October, the local businesses and restaurants open their doors to kids for Downtown Trick-or-Treating. Over in St. Charles, the annual Scarecrow Festival hosts a scarecrow-making contest. While Geneva hosts so many annual festivals, Coleman says that these events are becoming less common with locals as more festivals attract more and more attention from others around Chicagoland. Locals attend the Geneva French Market, the local farmers market, every Sunday, bringing a European-style market to Geneva.

Southeast Geneva balances a suburban aesthetic at home with the entertainment and outdoor beauty of life in Geneva itself, a picturesque community situated on the Fox River. Executive homes and smaller split level homes sit within the community, with an 18-hole golf course and a cross-country running complex in between. To the neighborhood’s immediate west, two riverside forest preserves and a lakeside park offer historical charms and natural beauty, and downtown Geneva offers a mix of local shops and restaurants. Stately homes with four to five bedrooms are the most common properties in the neighborhood. Homes in the Fox Run subdivision were built in the 2000s and feature New Traditional and Colonial Revival styles. Exteriors employ brick, cobblestone and vinyl. Homes on the neighborhood’s east side were established in the 1970s and generally have traditional ranch floorplans or split-level designs. The older homes on the east side generally sell from $250,000 to $450,000, while newer properties in Fox Run on the west are typically available from $700,000 to $952,000. Residents living near Kirk Road and Old Kirk Road are near the area’s two houses of worship: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and The Well, a non-denominational church. Kids in Southeast Geneva are zoned for schools in Geneva Community Unit School District No. 304. Western Avenue Elementary School has a 12:1 student-teacher ratio and earns a B-plus grade on Niche. Geneva Middle School is split between a north and south campus, and students are assigned to one or the other when they enroll. The school’s north campus earns an A-minus grade. Students at the A-ranked Geneva Community High School can enroll in a variety of courses, including topics like international business, media broadcasting and interior design alongside traditional, honors and Advanced Placement versions of traditional core classes. A trip across the Fox River leads to downtown Geneva’s distinctive boutiques and shops. Bohemian home goods go from the floor to the ceiling at Cocoon, one of the boutiques on Third Street. Harvey’s Tales offers books with a focus on local authors and curated selections. The store also has its own coffee bar, serving lattes and teas to accompany an afternoon of reading. Fair Game is the city’s local board game and hobby store, where newcomers to tabletop gaming can find programs to get started and established fans can participate in tournaments and To the north on State Street, American Science & Surplus has an eclectic mix of items for work and play, including tools, outdoor and indoor equipment and home décor. Aldi is the closest go-to for everyday grocery shopping, while Country Village Meats is also available nearby for premium cuts and deli sandwiches. Buttermilk Café is a local mainstay for brunch, offering a lineup of elevated diner classics with playful names like the Mean Green Chicken sandwich and the Chicken & Wow-fles. For a refined dining experience, Foxfire offers steaks, seafood and a rotating selection of specials. Settler’s Hill Golf Course is located in the center of the neighborhood. This 18-hole course was remodeled in 2022 and includes a clubhouse that was once a dairy barn. To the west, Fabyan Forest Preserve is home to a 68-foot-tall windmill built in the traditional Dutch style. The preserve also includes the Fabyan Villa Museum & Japanese Garden, which was once the home of influential businessman George Fabyan; the museum grounds were remodeled and expanded by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907. Walking trails connect the area to Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve, another park with an open meadow and access to the Fox River for fishing. Island Park offers a playground on the riverside and connects to the winding Fox River Trail. Multiple facilities for youth sports neighbor the golf course, including the Northwestern Medicine Cross Country Course, which has seven routes for high school and college athletes to conquer. Strikers Fox Valley Soccer Club offers soccer programs at levels from early youth all the way to adult semi-professional, with an indoor practice facility in the neighborhood on Kirk Road. The Fox Valley Ice Arena is also nearby and offers public skate sessions, private lessons for skating or hockey and all-ages hockey leagues. Fabyan Parkway is Southeast Geneva’s primary east-west thruway. For travel north into Geneva, locals can take Crissey Avenue on the neighborhood’s west side or Kirk Road on the east side. Most residents are about 1 mile south of downtown Geneva. Commuters can expect a 36-mile trip into Chicago; to save on gas, the Geneva Metra station is less than 1 mile west of the neighborhood across the State Street bridge. For medical emergencies, Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital is about 3 miles northwest of the neighborhood. Southeast Geneva is about 40 miles away from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and 43 miles away from Chicago Midway International Airport. Northwestern Medicine Field is less than two miles away from most residents. This ballpark, home to the Kane County Cougars, is where more than 10,000 fans can gather to root for the home team. West of the neighborhood in downtown Geneva, The Dam Bar & Grill is a laid-back sports bar with Bears memorabilia on the walls and a menu of domestic brews, pub grub and more. Annual traditions in Geneva include Swedish Days, a summertime festival with all-ages games, carnival rides, and the Swedish Days Lopp 5K, where participants are encouraged to run in their most Scandinavian attire. The city also hosts the annual Christmas Walk festival, where families can meet Santa, enjoy carriage rides through downtown Geneva and stroll down the promenade as light displays come to life. At the Geneva Public Library, locals can stop by for story sessions, First Friday events for the family or semi-annual book sales. The library also hosts the annual One Book, One Community event in the spring, where every patron of the library gets a free copy of a book to discuss with other library patrons in a large book club gathering.

The Eagle Brook neighborhood developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, around the time an 18-hole golf course and country club started up on undeveloped farmland east of the Fox River and the downtown western Chicago suburb of Geneva. “You don’t have to belong to the country club to live in the neighborhood and vice versa,” says Jen Rasmussen, a Realtor with @property Christie’s International Realty with ten years of experience. She’s also lived in the Eagle Brook neighborhood for 14 years and is a country club member. When the neighborhood started over 30 years ago, strict guidelines indicated how the homes should be built. “Over time, those guidelines kind of petered out, and you saw more custom-built homes,” Rasmussen says. “While there’s no HOA, some small pockets of the neighborhood may organize social events like a progressive dinner or a block party now and then.” The main price range for area houses is between $650,000 and $750,000 and between 2,700 and 4,200 square feet of living space. The high price of a home that backs up against the golf course is in the upper 900s. While most are contemporary custom-built houses, some are based on classical styles like Georgian and Colonial Revival. “Pretty much all of these homes have basements or partial crawlspaces,” Rasmussen says. There’s more to golf accessible to Eagle Brook Country Club members. That includes a 40,000-square-foot clubhouse, a dining room with outdoor eating options, a spacious fitness center with exercise classes, personal training and large locker rooms. They offer memberships for non-golfers, providing access to tennis, fitness, swimming, dining and banquet facilities. The membership also gives access to the driving range, practice area and four rounds of golf per year. Kids can enjoy summer at Sunset Pool, which has two water slides and a spray ground. Lap swimmers will love the eight designated lanes. The adjacent Sunset Community Center has over 30 pieces of cardiovascular equipment and personal trainers. The public school options in the neighborhood will most likely filter through Geneva Community Unit School District 304, which scores an overall A on Niche and an A-plus for the quality of its teachers. Western Avenue Elementary School is rated a B-plus and has a student-teacher ratio of 12-to-1. Geneva Middle School North and South are located next to each other on Viking Drive. The North school is rated an A-minus, and the South school gets a B-plus on Niche. Geneva Community High School is rated an A with a 98% graduation rate. Athletic teams have a natural Fox River rivalry with Batavia High School. Some grocery store options are on the corner of Fabyan Parkway and Randall Road, including Fresh Thyme Market, which provides organic produce. Just to the south, on either side of Randall Road, a Walmart Supercenter and Trader Joe’s are there for additional options. Smarty Pants Café is a science-based coffee shop where the walls are adorned with science-related images and posters, and science books are strewn about. Los Cantarito’s Mexican Restaurant serves all the traditional dishes and has happy hour margarita specials. Geneva is considered one of the most popular western suburbs, primarily because of the charm of the downtown area. “Although there are over 21,000 people, there is still a hometown feel,” says Kevin Stahr, communications coordinator for the City of Geneva. One of the popular downtown Geneva events is the Geneva Christmas Festival, which includes light tours and a tree-lighting ceremony. Another cool thing about downtown Geneva is that all the businesses are locally owned, and they vow to keep it that way,” Rasmussen says. Geneva is home to a Metra commuter rail station, where a ride into downtown Chicago that’s not an express train will take a little over an hour. The Geneva area is also served by the Pace bus system that serves the suburbs. Route 529 has stops on Randall Road.

Residents in Northeast Central Geneva are in a prime spot to enjoy the city’s natural beauty. With 10 parks peppered along the neighborhood, ample connections to a 61-mile trail and a location right at the edge of the Fox River, northern Illinois’ charm sits at the doorstep for locals. But folks are never too far away from distinctive businesses, common thoroughfares or acclaimed schools either. “Geneva is beautiful. It’s picturesque, like it can go on a postcard, says Marsha Wallace, broker and co-owner at Fox Valley Real Estate. Wallace has sold homes in Geneva and the surrounding area for more than 32 years. Northeast Central Geneva’s earliest single-family homes date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, but most properties emerged between the late 1950s and the 1990s. The first wave of development from the 1950s to 1970s included variations on ranch and split-level floorplans with a minimal traditional style. Homes from the 1980s and 1990s lean into the Colonial Revival style with cottages and multi-level floorplans built to evoke an early American aesthetic. Single-family homes generally sell from $251,000 to $605,000. The neighborhood's townhouses share Colonial Revival stylings while bearing hallmarks of late 20th-century homes, such as aluminum or vinyl siding, asphalt roofing and minimal ornamentation. Prices typically run between $230,000 and $462,000. Public school students in Geneva are served by Geneva Community Unit School District 304. Harrison Street Elementary School is located on the west side of the neighborhood and earns a B-plus grade on Niche. Middle school students in the district are equally distributed between Geneva Middle School’s north and south campuses; the north campus earns an A-minus grade on Niche. Geneva Community High School offers more than 60 extracurricular activities and clubs, including eight honor society chapters in varied subjects. The school earns an A grade on Niche. A wide selection of busineses are peppered along East State Street, including some of Geneva’s most distinctive restaurants. Riganato Old World Grille offers casual Italian and Greek fare in a home-styled building. Munchie P’s is a neighborhood staple for Chicago beef sandwiches, gyros and fast food, with photos from the shop’s 45-year history hanging up alongside pop culture memorabilia. For brunch fare there’s Bad Guy Bagels, a New York-style shop with lox sandwiches, schmears and old-school arcade machines. Shopping options include Aldi on State Street within the neighborhood and Meijer about 3 miles west. Specialty retailers close by include DePAW Pet Resort, Country Village Meats and Dane’s Games Geneva. Northeast Central Geneva’s selection of more than 10 parks makes it a compelling option for those who enjoy getting outside. The winding Illinois Prairie Path trail network connects parks like Riverside Park, Good Templar Park and Moore Park with a series of paths across the Chicago area, with more than 60 miles of former rail lines converted for walking, cycling and horseback riding. Bennett Park, Island Park and Old Mill Park each connect through the Fox River Trail, which runs along the famed waterway. Esping Park has a playground, basketball court, picnic area and baseball field. Other parks peppered throughout the neighborhood offer similar amenities, including Lion, Sunset and Elm Park. East State Street and South Bennett Street are Northeast Central Geneva’s primary connections to the Chicagoland area. The Geneva city center is about 1 mile west of the neighborhood, while Aurora is about 10 miles south. Naperville is 15 miles southeast, and Chicago is 43 miles east. Commuters traveling across the area can catch Metra rail trains from the Geneva station, about 2 miles away. Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital is 3 miles west of the neighborhood for medical emergencies. Residents leaving North Illinois can catch flights at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, 30 miles northeast. The neighborhood’s connections to the Geneva area make it easy for residents to join in traditions and celebrations in the city. Swedish Days is an annual festival with vendors, carnival attractions and live entertainment in downtown Geneva, held continuously in June since 1949. September brings the annual Festival of the Vine to town, where guests can sample wine and plates from local restaurants. The Friends of the Viking Ship Museum in the neighborhood is home to the Viking, a replica Viking ship from the 1890s that sailed from Norway to Chicago.