Featured Maps

Phased Development

The new neighborhood was platted and built in six phases – indistinguishable to the eye – between 1946 and 1957 following a measured approach in a steady march from east to west. Four annexations to the city of Geneva preceded or happened concurrently with subdivision plats. Development got off to a slow start with only seven homes built in the first five years from 1946–1950. Subsequently, the phased development approach produced a steady stream and rising tide of building from about 1951 to 1961 as the phases began to accumulate and overlap. Rising peak years of building activity culminated in 1959 with 21 new home permits issued across three different phases.

The peak building years for Sansone’s subdivision were from 1955–1960 when 89 or about two-thirds of the total homes were permitted and built. By mid-1961 Sansone’s subdivision was nearly fully built out. About two dozen vacant lots remained, most on Willow Lane. In 1989, 300 Maple Lane was built on the final open lot. Sansone’s subdivision was the western city limit, the transition from urban to rural, the edge of the metropolitan area. To the west was an endless stretch of corn and beans, barns and silos.

Community Development

Sansone’s subdivision was a new and different residential community built on Geneva’s west edge beginning in 1946, not even a year after the end of World War II. The blocks east of this new neighborhood were largely teens and twenties bungalow, prairie, colonial revival, craftsman, tudor and minimal traditional homes with back yard garages laid out on the city’s grid of streets. From Charles Street west to Willow Lane, and from State St. north to Union St. extended, the brand new Sansone subdivision took shape on the same street grid extended but with 138 mostly ranch and split-level homes with attached garages on wide lots. Sansone’s subdivision brought Geneva into the modern era of housing and suburban living in the first post-World War II decade at a time when if you were in town there was a waiting list and permit required for natural gas heat because of energy shortages, and an operator was still needed to make a local telephone call, not to mention long-distance.

Sansone’s subdivision represented continuity and change in community development. The new neighborhood continued the city’s street grid, but not other traditional public improvements like sidewalks and curb and gutter. Macadam chip and seal streets initially plus wide lots and open-ditch drainage contributes to an open, spacious semi-rural look and feel. Lots are 100ft wide x 132ft deep totaling 13,000 sq. ft., wider and larger than the typical pre-war 50ft side x 132ft deep 6,500 sq. ft. city lot. About 34 acres of open space assembled from mostly un-subdivided land in the 1950’s by Community Unit School District 304 was put to use as athletic fields in the 1970’s and 80’s is a lasting attraction and amenity for Sansone’s subdivision. Initially, the new neighborhood was hemmed in by fields of corn and beans to the north and west. There were no through streets north to St. Charles or west to State Street. That changed in 1973 when the Westfield Park Subdivision Unit-5 reached south to Willow Lane and Maple Lane in Geneva and Gray Street was extended; providing a more complete street grid by closing some of the gaps at the top Sansone’s subdivision.