Editorial: The need to repair, reopen Cuneo Mansion and Gardens

With its salmon-colored walls, opulent grounds and rich history, the Cuneo Mansion and Gardens in Vernon Hills is unique and grand.

And, sadly, closed to the public.

The old Italian villa was completed 100 years ago for utility magnate Samuel Insull, but no celebration is scheduled. Instead, its current owner, Loyola University Chicago, is working on plans to fund extensive repairs and rehabilitation needed to return it to its position as one of suburbs' prized landmarks.

Preserving such a treasure is important because gleaming office buildings, modern shopping malls and new subdivisions often mask the real history of the suburbs. The kind of history found in places where people lived, worked and played for generations is critical to knowing, understanding and feeling the fabric of a community.

Cuneo must reopen and hold a spot along with Adlai Stevenson's house in Mettawa, the Woodstock Opera House, Fabyan Villa in Geneva, the McDonald's Museum in Des Plaines and other similar suburban icons.

We applaud the project, not just because it protects Cuneo's valuable artwork, ornate components and pioneering features. The mansion is also important because it is a community gem that was shared with the public until a couple of years ago.

For 21 years, it was the site of the popular drive-through holiday light show that the village partnered with Cuneo and later Loyola to stage on the mansion's heavily decorated grounds for the season.

It was open to guided tours that gave the public an opportunity to see how the social elite lived in a bygone era.

And, the building and its cathedral-like aisles of 70-foot spruce and fir trees was a regal venue for wedding receptions for many suburbanites. The last one is set for July 2.

"We told them (Loyola) right from the very beginning, we want to keep it as something the public can still use," longtime Vernon Hills Trustee Thom Koch told the Daily Herald's Mick Zawislak.

Repairing and reopening Cuneo won't be quick or easy.

Loyola wants to sell 53 acres of the grounds to Pulte Homes to create an exclusive, gated community. Under an agreement with the village, $3 million of the proceeds would be set aside and used by Loyola to pay for repairs and improvements at the mansion. It will likely be November before the sale occurs in the first of two phases.

Much work has already been done to upgrade and improve the building, including replacing the original boilers and repairing the Midwest's oldest functioning elevator. However, more is needed before the building is watertight and considered structurally safe and sound to reopen.

That includes an estimated $700,000 in repairs to the main roof and original 30-foot glass skylight over the Great Hall. Repairs are needed to the concealed roof drains and west patio, 21 lower-level windows must be replaced, and sprinklers must be installed. The cost is estimated at $2 million.

That doesn't even take into account the unknown issues that always surface during the renovation and restoration of any old house, especially one with century-old ornate, handmade components.

Some uncertainty and unanswered questions hang over the project - when will the work begin, how long will it take, what if the sale doesn't happen.

But the reward of working through those challenges will be a repaired Cuneo mansion that again opens to the public a landmark that helps define both the past and the future identity of the suburbs.