Home of Ravinia
Located just 25 miles north of Chicago, Highland Park is one of Lake County’s greatest suburban cities. Highland Park is a little world all in its own. It is the home to the incomparable Chicago Botanic Gardens, amazing boutiques, delicious restaurants, festivals, beautiful beaches, and the historic Ravinia Festival, the oldest outdoor music festival in the United States. Every summer, the world-renown Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) has its summer residency at Ravinia and has remained a Chicago summer favorite activity since 1904. The newly renovated Rosewood Beach offers residents and visitors a beautiful scene of Lake Michigan, while the Prairie Wolf Slough highlights the beauty of the prairie state. The Landmark Renaissance Place Cinema is a boutique theatre that charms its guest, right in the hub of downtown Highland Park. Highland Park has also been very prominent in popular culture. Vanity Fair writes, “Highland Park has the feel of a gated community without the actual gates”, and has a tradition of “very clever minds who left to strike gold in Hollywood.” Highland Park was used for location shots for several movies written and directed by John Hughes in the 1980s including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Uncle Buck and Home Alone, as well as other popular 1980s films Ordinary People and Risky Business.
