The town that Kimball Hill built

Marti and Bill Roberts got a good tip in 1958.

A new builder was throwing up homes in somewhere called Rolling Meadows, which back then was just one continuous farm.

The homes were affordable and if the family couldn't pay the 10 percent down, $10 or $25 would do.

The Roberts bought their first home for $13,000 from Kimball Hill. Seven years later they upgraded and bought another Kimball home two blocks away for $19,000 on the 2200 block of Heron Court.

"After World War II and the Korean War, there were so many vets looking for homes," said Marti. "We've been here ever since."

For more than a decade, Kimball Hill was the only home builder in Rolling Meadows. At one point, there were 47 kids living in the handful of homes circling Heron Court, Marti said.

But Hill's influence went beyond subdivision planning. He extended streets and then paved and named them -- mostly after birds.

He was the driving force behind the incorporation of Rolling Meadows, and the only reason the town wasn't named for him was because he didn't want it.

However, Hill did pick the name Rolling Meadows, Mayor Ken Nelson said.

"He's the founder of this city -- there is no doubt about that," Nelson said.

Walk into the Rolling Meadows Historical Society and that's pretty clear.

It's a replica of an early 1950's Kimball home, complete with a hula hoop, Tupperware and a Formica kitchen table. Every other photograph on the wall is a newspaper article or a photograph of the Kimball family.

Marti Roberts is a volunteer at the museum, which is only open thanks to a $25,000 Kimball Hill Inc. donation.

Kimball Hill, a lawyer, bought more than 500 acres of land just south of the Arlington Park track in 1953 for $750 an acre and wrote the first chapter of the history of Rolling Meadows. The homes he built between 1954 and 1956 came with no trees, no grass no paved driveways.

Despite Kimball Hill Inc.'s current financial troubles, Nelson is confident the company, which dates to 1939, will pull though.

"It's just a tough time for all developers right now," Nelson said. "But I'm encouraged by what they've done in the past."

At the museum on Wednesday, Marti Roberts brushed dust off the Formica table surrounded by photos of Kimball family members.

Kimball "wasn't a saint, but he cared about people," she said. "He wanted vets to have a home and raise a family. And we did."