The Lake Forest Preservation Foundation and Ragdale will co-host a three-day preservation symposium Oct. 16-18 at sites across Lake Forest. Both nonprofits turn 50 in 2026.

The inaugural Lake Forest Preservation Symposium brings architects, historians and professors to Ragdale, Lake Forest College and other venues to discuss why preservation matters and where it goes next, as first reported by Lake Forest Love. City Manager Jason Wicha will join the symposium's opening panel to discuss how the city's preservation rules and design review process protect community character.

The program opens Friday afternoon, Oct. 16 at Ragdale with a public lecture by Giovanni Aloi, an art historian and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His talk is titled "Avant-Gardeners: When the Garden Becomes Art."

Saturday, Oct. 17 moves to Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel on the Lake Forest College campus, 555 N. Sheridan Road, starting at 9:15 a.m. Former Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1999, and television personality Bill Kurtis will moderate panels.

The weekend wraps Sunday, Oct. 18 with Community Heritage Day, running 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Attendees can tour historically significant homes, visit a Ragdale exhibition at the History Center and attend a reception in the Library Courtyards.

The symposium grew out of a chance meeting. Jennifer McGregor, executive director of the Preservation Foundation, and Paul Sacaridiz, executive director of Ragdale, struck up a conversation outside Hometown Coffee about their overlapping missions. McGregor told Lake Forest Love the shared anniversary prompted a question: how could the two organizations turn that milestone into something lasting? She said the symposium is meant to expand how the community thinks about preservation.

Sacaridiz told the publication he is most excited about what follows the event itself: new connections between people who would not have crossed paths otherwise, and ideas that take shape long after the panels end. He called the weekend a model for how local nonprofits can work together.

Ragdale, the former country estate of architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, has served nearly 6,000 artists since its 1976 founding as a residency program. Its campus includes multiple buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The Preservation Foundation, also founded in 1976, has raised more than $4 million for preservation efforts, according to the foundation's fall newsletter. A citywide survey cited in that newsletter found 92% of respondents said Lake Forest's historic character was important in their decision to live in the city.

Registration and the full program are available at LFPF.org/events.