Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Kenilworth, IL

Kenilworth is a village in Cook County on Lake Michigan's North Shore, 15 miles north of downtown Chicago, and it is regarded as the wealthiest community in Illinois.

Kenilworth is the newest of the nine suburban North Shore communities bordering Lake Michigan, and it is the only one of them developed as a planned community.

Kenilworth was founded in 1889 when Joseph Sears purchased 223.6 acres of farmland between the Chicago and North Western Railroad and Lake Michigan for $150,300 and formed the Kenilworth Company to build his suburban vision.

Sears laid down strict founding principles for Kenilworth — large lots, high standards of construction and no alleys — and, reflecting the exclusions of the era, original lot sales were restricted to Caucasians only.

After reaching the required 300 residents, Kenilworth was incorporated on February 4, 1896, and its elected board took over municipal functions from Joseph Sears.

Architect Franklin Burnham of the Kenilworth Company designed the village's railroad station and the Kenilworth Union Church, and the planned community drew visiting architects from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Kenilworth's population has been remarkably stable for nearly a century: the village counted 2,501 residents in 1930 and 2,514 at the 2020 census.

Kenilworth packs its 2,514 residents into just 0.61 square miles, and the 2020 census counted 791 households in the village.

Kenilworth's median household income was $241,591 in Census figures, and in January 2011 Forbes ranked it the second most affluent neighborhood in the United States, calling it the most exclusive neighborhood in the Midwest.

Kenilworth has its own public school district whose only school is Joseph Sears School, named after the village's founder, and it is the fifth most expensive K-8 district in Illinois in per-student spending.