both serve ages two through 14,
and are both accredited by AMI (Association Montessori Internationale);
the latter is nationally known from the writings of founder and
former head Paula Polk Lillard, and is often cited as one of the
leading Montessori schools in America. Lake Forest Academy, a boarding
and day school on the west side of Lake Forest, is considered to
be one of the best college preparatory and boarding schools in the
Midwest, and attracts students from across the country and around
the world.
Lake Forest Country Day School was recently lauded
by Chicago Magazine for its use of technology in the classroom.
East Lake Academy and the School of St. Mary are the two private,
Catholic schools located in Lake Forest: East Lake Academy is a
newer elementary school started in 2001, and the School of St. Mary
was established in 1917 and is a Catholic institution in Lake Forest.
Lake Forest is notorious for its strong stance
against commercial development. High property taxes have driven
out many businesses, especially car dealerships, to neighboring
Lake Bluff. Most notably, Lake Forest Sportscars, one of the only
Ferarri dealerships in Illinois, moved from downtown to its current
location on Waukegan Road in Lake Bluff, just across the street
from Lake Forest. The McDonald's in West Lake Forest was approved
only after significant appearance changes, giving it a "barn-like"
appearance. There were plans for a Costco to be built on Illinois
Route 60, near the Tri-State Tollway in 2005. However, these plans
were canceled due to opposition from the city government, local
citizens, and the Chicago Bears.
Lake Forest is famous in Chicago for its history
of polo, being once the farthest-west establishment of the sport
in the US. It was home to the "East-West clash of 1933"
in which a team of "Westerners", today Midwesterners,
challenged the best of the Eastern US polo teams, winning two of
three matches. Box seats sold for $5.50 and the general public was
admitted for $1.10. The Chicago press covered the match extensively,
right down to the arrival of every horse and player, the color of
the horseflesh and the color of the goalposts. The match was described
as a "gleaming moment in American polo, if not the very zenith
of the game in this country." Today, Lake Forest continues
the tradition, and polo is played yearly throughout August. In F.
Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan's polo ponies
are said to have been bred in Lake Forest.
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