618 Willow

While Cook County records estimate that the quaint house at 618 Willow was built c. 1890, it was actually built much earlier and is one of the oldest early settler homes still standing in Winnetka.

The original portion of the house was built sometime in the 1850s or early 1860s. The first known residents were Nicholas and Minnie Blasius, who put an addition on the existing house when they purchased the property in 1864.

Like many early settlers, both Nicholas and Minnie were born in Germany – Minnie in 1834 and Nicholas in 1835. While we don’t know for sure, it’s possible that Nicholas and Minnie met while still living in Germany. Nicholas immigrated to the U.S. in 1860, and Minnie arrived here in 1863. They got married in 1864 and moved to Winnetka that same year.

While records indicate that Nicholas first worked as a shoemaker in the village, like many early settlers, he left that profession behind in the 1870s when he purchased some farm lands just south of the village center and became a farmer. The Blasius farm was quite large – thankfully, by 1870, Nick and Minnie had four children to help work the lands.

By the early 1900s, the Blasius’s had tenants living on their farmlands and their children had careers of their own. Nick and Minnie and most of the children (and later, their spouses) continued living in the house at 618 Willow. After Minnie died in 1910 and Nick in 1912, their son John, a carpenter who was born in the house in 1865, remained at 618 Willow for over a decade.

Like his parents, John was very involved in village life – notably, he and his brother Peter were both members of Winnetka’s early volunteer fire department. Peter, who was also born in this house, was also an early Winnetka police officer. John left a particularly important legacy – in the 1930s, he wrote several pages detailing his memories of early Winnetka and donated them to the Winnetka Historical Society. These documents contribute greatly to our understanding of early Winnetka, and along with the house at 618 Willow, serve as physical reminders of the significance of this early settler family.