The North Shore Weekend, October 15th, 2022

WEEKEND WEATHER

Saturday, Partly sunny

then becoming

high

LOCAL LEGEND

THIS YEAR’S HONOREE, ED WEHMER, BUILT WINTRUST BANK WITH A MIX OF LUCK, MOXIE, AND A COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY BANKING. HIS LEGACY WILL BE CELEBRATED OCTOBER 21 AT THE HISTORY CENTER OF LAKE FOREST-LAKE BLUFF.

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BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

UPGRADE SAFETY AND SECURITY, including updating fire alarm systems, secure entryways and security cameras

For the man who built the Win trust Bank empire, Ed Wehmer is remarkably unassuming. For sure, the former rugby player knows how to compete in the dog-eat-dog world of banking, but he doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. The Lake Forest resident would much rather talk about his North Shore roots and his family than the fact that Wintrust is the second largest bank headquartered in Illinois.

How will your schools pay

significant contributions to the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff community and beyond.

Update HVAC systems to IMPROVE AIR QUALITY, air flow, temperature control and energy efficiency

The center cites Wehmer’s com mitment to the community by serv ing on many nonprofit boards, and that his involvement in the commu nity ensures that children and adults alike are healthy, both physically and financially.

REPLACE OUTDATED ROOFING AND WINDOWS and repair exterior walls

Address Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) upgrades to IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY for students, staff and visitors

Words like “lucky” and “fortunate” are sprinkled in the language he uses to describe his banking career.

Wehmer’s is a classic North Shore story. He grew up in Kenilworth and attended Faith, Hope, and Char ity School in Winnetka and Loyola Academy in Wilmette before head ing off to Georgetown University in Washington, DC to study accounting.

IMPROVE TECHNOLOGY infrastructure, including electrical upgrades

Fittingly, the History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff will award Wehmer with its Local Legend award at an event on October 21. The annual Local Legends award recog nizes an individual who has made

Add instructional SPACE FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION programming

While at Georgetown, he decided to study finance in addition to ac counting and that decision would ultimately lead to his now 30-year career in banking and steering the ship that is now Wintrust.

Add SPACE FOR STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES, including psychologists, social workers, speech therapists and other professionals

Provides a learning environment Improves air which has STUDENT

and visitors

costly, disruptive Band-Aid fixes

Dorothy and Local Legend Ed Wehmer. PHOTOGRAPHY BY IAN MCLEOD

John Conatser FOUNDER

LIFESTYLE & ARTS

shore foodie

Jennifer

CONTRIBUTING

Dustin

CONTRIBUTING

DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY AND

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

LOCAL LEGEND From PG 1

“A friend of mine, we were in my room one day, and he figured out how we could get two degrees for the price of one,” Wehmer says. “I thought, ‘That’s a good idea’. So, I took five more

Trust the day after Labor Day in 1991 and by December had 11 employees. He reopened its door in Lake Forest two days after Christmas and has never looked back. In subsequent years he would go on to open banks in Hinsdale, Wilmette, and Libertyville.

The idea was as we built out the company with our employees to keep decisions as close to the customer as possible, and people have to be involved in the town where they live and work.

“In ’96, I ran out of friends and neighbors and family to raise money from. We were growing so fast I was always out raising capital,” Wehmer says. “I gained like forty pounds—two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners. It was wild.”

Eventually, the banks were put into a holding company and consolidated under the Wintrust name, although the individual banks retain their commu nity identities. Wehmer says the rapid growth of the company is due to its focus on serving communities, some thing that was lost during the frenzy of bank mergers that have occurred the past three decades.

“All the great community banks were bought by the big banks, and people were really upset with the fact that they were getting commoditized, and the banks weren’t providing the services they once did,” he says. “So, we used a model based on the community banks of the past.”

classes and one Summer School class and got a degree in accounting and in finance. I got two diplomas; pretty cool.”

After Georgetown, Wehmer got his CPA and ended up at Ernst & Ernst (Ernst & Young today) and worked with manufacturing, distribution, and insurance clients, but he gravited to ward banking, spending time with tax staff and auditors.

“It was right when Illinois changed its laws and bank mergers started hap pening in mass,” Wehmer says. “I had a mentor who said, ‘Ed, go figure out how to merge banks’ and I said, ‘Well, OK’. I ended up running the acquisition area at Ernst for two years.”

After working for several banks as CFO and helping them acquire other banks, Wehmer decided to strike out on his own in 1991, and what would even tually become Wintrust was born.

“I figured out how to start a bank and took a big cut in pay and rented an old building in Lake Forest, showed up for work and didn’t have anywhere to sit or a phone,” he says. “I got one of those mobile phones that was as big as a boot and sat in Market Square to make calls and get going.”

He acquired Lake Forest Bank and

Wintrust now comprises 15 chartered banks with 180 locations that span from Milwaukee to Northwest Indiana, all branded by the names of the towns in which they are located. It’s a $52 billion organization with around $40 billion in assets under management.

“We still provide that good, hightouch, high-tech service. Better prod ucts, better delivery systems, kill them with service,” Wehmer says. “You’ve got to think small. As soon as you think big you lose that common touch.”

Wintrust remains committed to the communities in which it operates. Of the 15 banks that make up the com pany, 14 have outstanding Community Reinvestment Act ratings, a designa tion only three percent of banks in the U.S. achieve. It has won the JD Power Award for customer service multiple times, as well as the Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Ethics.

“It’s the shareholders, the customers, the communities we serve, and our em ployees; those are our four pillars,” he says. “The idea was as we built out the company with our employees to keep decisions as close to the customer as possible, and people have to be involved in the town where they live and work.”

Wehmer has six children raging in ages now from 28 to 42. They were a

major reason he decided to start the company in Lake Forest. He wanted to spend more time with his kids.

“I was downtown working all the time and never got to see the kids, working 12-hour days and Saturdays and I said, ‘Well that stinks’,” he says. “I could see the kids more, and sure enough, the banker in town got to coach the kids in basketball, football, you name it.”

Wehmer also says Lake Forest was the perfect place to raise a family.

“It’s a great place to raise our kids.

When we got married, we had a condo in Old Town then we moved to North field for seven years and then in 1980 we built a house in the Ponds of Lake Forest and love it up here,” Wehmer says. “It’s just such a great community and has a great Midwestern feel. I pinch myself every day, how lucky we are.”

The Local Legends event will take place on Friday, October 21, at 6:30 p.m. at the History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff, 509 E. Deerpath in Lake Forest.

This year's Local Legend is Lake Forest resident Ed Wehmer. PHOTOGRAPHY BY IAN MCLEOD

GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

More than 50 antique dealers and 2,000 collectors will be on hand for the Win netka Community House 50th Anniversary Antiques + Modernism (A+M) Show, which will be held the weekend of Friday, Novem ber 4, through Sunday, November 6. The event, a primary fundraiser for the Commu nity House each year, is sponsored and run by its Women’s Board, the fundraising arm of the organization.

This year’s show is co-chaired by Winnet ka residents Kim Ronan and Elyse Hahner. Both moved with their families to Winnetka and the Community House and the A+M show have served as vital opportunities for them to feel a part of the North Shore com munity.

“My family and I moved to Winnetka from Washington, D.C. eight years ago and I got to a point, as a stay-at-home mom, where I started volunteering for a lot of dif ferent community organizations and I joined the Woman's Board,” Ronan says. “I have found the Community House to be such an integral part of our community. My kids have taken classes there and I've seen shows there. I enjoy the time with the Woman's Board and the A+M Show in particular because it's such a different and unique experience.”

Ronan says the entire space is transformed into a showroom that showcases all of the

at the show, and sponsorships from local businesses that are important to bringing the show to life.

“It's a fun community event,” she says. “You walk through, and you may run into people you know or talk with the dealers who come from all over the country and have interesting stories to tell.”

The event kicks off on Thursday, Novem ber 3 with the A+M Preview Party from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Guest will enjoy seasonal food, inspired cocktails, and early access to start buying at the show. Tickets are $150 in advance and $175 at the door and include three-day admission to the show.

“I think for the curiosity seeker, it's a must, you must come to the Preview Party to see everything on display and just feel the excitement of the different dealers who are there and what they have,” says Hahner. “It doesn't matter if you are looking for an antique or if you're looking for something a little bit more modern.”

This year’s show includes three events featuring high-profile speakers from the antiques, interior design, and floral design worlds.

Michael Flanagan, former host of Antiques Roadshow on PBS, will be walking a group through the show to point out different an tiques and tell their stories; interior designer Meg Caswell of HGTV fame will give a talk about decorating the home and how an tiques can complement interior design; and, Laura Dowling, who was the floral designer for the White House from 2009 to 2015, will talk about floral arrangements and how they can be incorporated into home décor.

Hahner says she plugged into the Commu nity House when she moved to Winnetka with her family from Chicago as a way of making new friends and familiarizing herself with the local community.

“My family and I moved to Winnetka in 2014, and through my children I met some moms who were already involved on the Woman's Board for the Winnetka Com munity House,” Hahner says. “One of the moms said, ‘You know, I would love it if you got involved and you’ll meet a bunch of people.’ That was my mission coming from the city because we didn't know anyone.”

Hahner went to her first A+M Show In 2015 and says she fell in love.

“This was before I was on the Women’s Board and I couldn't believe the way that they had transformed the house to be this amazing showcase for these dealers,” she says. “It was fun and lively and very commu nity oriented. So, when I had the opportu nity to join the board, I jumped at it.”

What Hahner likes most about the show is watching board members come together and turn the house into what she calls, “a fairy tale.”

“It's just amazing and there are so many diverse dealers from having very old antiques from the 1800s through mid-century mod ern pieces to the 1920s. It’s like it takes you back to a different time,” she says, adding that she was somewhat surprised by demo graphic diversity the show attracts.

different dealers. The show is truly immersed within the Community House.

“The experience of walking through and seeing all of these antiques from all kinds of different eras in time, from the 1700s in England to the Madmen ’60s era in the United States,” Ronan says. “It's just fascinating. There’s such an array of things to look at and think about if they were to be part of your own space.”

Ronan says the event is also centered on community. Donations are generated by ticket sales, fees from dealers for booth space

“I love watching the different generations come through the show. At first, I thought it’s antiques and it was going be just a show for older people. That was wrong. It was a show for everyone because there's a little bit of something for everyone that walks in the door. That's really my favorite part and seeing the dealers come back year after year, what they add to their collections, and also seeing new dealers coming in.”

And that, she says, is what makes it so special

“It's a magical experience, and I would encourage anyone and everyone to come.”

The Winnetka Community House Antiques + Modernism Show runs from November 4 to 6 at the Winnetka Community House, 630 Lin coln Avenue, in Winnetka. A Preview Party will take place on Thursday, November 3. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit thewinnetkashow.com.

Event co-chairs Kim Ronan and Elyse Hahner.

NORTH SHORE FOODIE

GRILLED PORK CHOPS WITH FRESH CURRANT MARINADE AND SAUCE

BY MONICA KASS ROGERS THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Fresh currant berries are the culinary pearls of the fruit family. A member of the gooseberry family native to Europe, currants also grow here. White or red, each tiny fruit pops with a burst of tart sweetness, with flavor a bit like cran berry, but brighter. Thinking those flavors would be very nice with meat sent me to the kitchen to work up both a sauce, and marinade to prepare for nice, fat grilled bone-in pork chops. To make it, you’ll use most of the same ingredients in the marinade and the sauce. The sauce also has some port, fresh lemon, shallot, and agave nectar in it.

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE CHOPS AND MARINADE

• 4 thick-cut, bone-in pork chops

• ¼ cup olive oil

• 3/4 cup crushed red and white cur rants OR ¾ cup red currants

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• Leaves from three sprigs of rose mary, finely chopped to make 2 Tbsp

• ½ tsp salt

• ½ tsp freshly cracked pepper

FOR THE SAUCE

• 1 cup red and 1 cup white currants OR 2 cups red

• 1/8 tsp fresh garlic, very finely minced

• Leaves from 1 spring of rosemary, chopped

• 1 small shallot, peeled and finely chopped OR 2 Tbsp finely minced sweet onion

• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

• Zest of ½ lemon

• 2 tsp fresh juice from the ½ lemon

• 3/4 cup port

• 2 Tbsp agave nectar, plus more to taste

METHOD

MAKE MARINADE

• Combine olive oil, crushed currants, minced garlic, chopped rosemary leaves, salt and pepper.

MARINATE PORK CHOPS

• Rinse and pat dry chops. Place in a Ziplock bag or shal low glass bowl and add marinade, massage marinade into the chops. Place in refrigerator to marinate for 1 hour, turning chops over half way through chilling time.

MAKE FRESH CURRANT SAUCE

• While the chops marinate, make the sauce. Combine all sauce ingredients in a small pot over medium heat. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to simmer and crush berries with a potato masher. Simmer for 10 minutes. Pour contents of pot into a fine mesh strainer, capturing the liquid in a bowl. Discard solids from mesh strainer. Place liquid back

into pot and simmer until reduced into sauce consistency (about 8 minutes.) Taste to adjust seasoning for desired sweetness. Add a bit more agave nectar if needed.

GRILL CHOPS

• Heat grill to medium high. Remove chops from marinade pat off excess liquid and place on grill. Sear 3 minutes on one side; flip and sear another three minutes on other side. Continue grilling until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Remove chops from grill and allow to rest for ten minutes.

SERVE

• Plate each chop, drizzle with currant sauce. Garnish with rosemary sprig and a few fresh currant berries. I like to serve this with quick-sauteed spinach and garlic mashed potatoes.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MONICA KASS ROGERS

SHORE

FLETCHER’S HARVEST

GREET GUESTS AT YOUR NEXT GATHERING WITH A FESTIVE DRINK. FLETCHER’S HARVEST IS AN AUTUMNAL, CIDER-BASED COCKTAIL THAT CAN BE SPIKED WITH SPICED RUM OR SERVED WITH SPARKLING WATER FOR AN ALCOHOL-FREE ALTERNATIVE.

MAKES ONE INGREDIENTS

•

ounces apple cider

•

freshly squeezed clemen tine

•

autumn spiced

syrup

• cinnamon stick, clementine peel, or apple slice for

METHOD

• Add ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

• Garnish with a cinnamon stick, twist of clementine peel, or a paper-thin slice of apple.

• For an alcohol-free version, increase simple syrup amount to ¾ ounce and omit the rum. After shaking and straining, top with 2 ounces of spar kling water.

AUTUMN SPICED SIMPLE SYRUP

INGREDIENTS

•

METHOD

• Bring all ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce to a simmer, stirring occa sionally, until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat, cover, and allow to cool completely.

• Strain into a jar with a tight-fitting lid and store in refrigerator for up to two weeks.

RECIPE AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY WENDY FRANZEN

HER PIN-ERARY FOR SUCCESS

LAKE BLUFF RESIDENT AND AVID TRAVELER ANNIE PEZZA WANTED EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY TRIP TO COUNT FOR HER AND OTHERS, SO SHE STARTED A NEW SOCIAL PLATFORM WHERE USERS CAN SHARE REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCES.

BY BILL MCLEAN ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT

For a first date on the 4th of July in Colorado years ago, Annie Pezza watched fireworks from a spot on the roof of a parking garage.

Sparks must have flown above those autos on that night, too.

Annie and her Independence Day date, Lake Forest native Paul Pezza, got mar ried in 2003.

Some 16 years later, frustration stemming from making preparations to travel—another one of Annie’s true loves—ignited something com pletely different: a business idea.

“People often engage in scat tered, unproductive searches on the Internet before traveling,” says the 50-year-old Pezza, a Lake Bluff resident since 2008. “It became exhausting, planning trips for hours and still feeling unsure about the trip. We live in a time where information is readily available, but piecing it together is brutal.

“I wanted to create a digital platform that solves the travel search dilemma. I wanted to offer a social platform where users can discover, create, and share travel stories, itineraries, and favorite trips. Reading travel itineraries of real people—along with their likes and dislikes during the trips, helpful tips, and what they would’ve done differently— would be invaluable for other travelers.”

Pezza’s MyPinerary was born in 2019, and she continues to serve as its CEO. It’s a landing page and blog now (where users are sharing details of their travels), but the MyPinerary website and mobile friendly platform will launch later this year or in early 2023.

“I’d been thinking about this for two years when I first told my hus band about my idea,” recalls Pezza, who shares three children—Franc esca, 18; Cole, 15; and Jeannie, 12—with Paul. “Paul had just earned his MBA, and we were eating lunch at home at the time. He loved the idea.”

Annie Pezza would love nothing more than to see MyPinerary become the Spotify of travel. She’d also like to break the record for Consecutive Fun Days on the Job. One of her inspirations is British entrepreneur Richard Branson, who might have as much positivity as he has fearless ness.

“The challenge is to follow through on a great idea,” starts one of Branson’s notable quotes. “I think if (you’ve got) a great idea, you need to just give it a try. And if you fall flat on your face, pick yourself up and try again. And, remember, you’ve got to go make a real difference in people’s lives

if you’re going to be success ful.”

Two blogs submitted to MyPinerary illustrate the use fulness of Pezza’s endeavor: A mother and daughter took a 12-day trip to London, Paris, and Rome. While checking out Windsor Castle, they enjoyed the quaintness of Windsor and recommended taking a train to and from Windsor instead of a tour bus for “ultimate flexibility.” Renting an electric scooter in Paris and Rome, they added, is a must.

Couples visited Krakow, Poland, for a four-day trip and thoroughly enjoyed walking the entire city while soaking up its rich history. A visit to Schindler’s Museum would have been another high light of their stay—had they known how sought-after a ticket was. Their advice to MyPinerary visitors: “Make reservations well in advance.”

“What I want MyPinerary to provide is the authentic travel experience for users,” Pezza says, adding her venture also features an element near and dear to her— sustainable travel (and how to become an eco-friendly traveler).

“If I’m getting ready to visit a country for the first time, I’d like to know, from someone who’d just returned from the country, all about that country’s

unique spots. Like that great restaurant just around the corner, or that amazing view at the end of a trail.

“There might even be a cool cooking class offered in, say, Lisbon, Portugal,” she adds. “People want to know these things well before they get on a plane. They also want to return home fulfilled, not frazzled.”

Pezza was born in St. Louis and grew up in Denver. She attended Overland High School, home of the Trailblazers, in Aurora, Colorado, and sang in the school’s choir. Her late mother, Jeannie, who died way too young at 54 in 2002, was a waitress, an artist, a photographer, and a perennial contender for Kindest Human in Civilization.

“My mother had so much compassion, and she was incredibly loving,” Pezza says. “She also always had a dollar for anyone on the street who needed it.”

Pezza majored in speech communica tion at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She aced stints in the restaurant industry (hostess, waitress, accounting), as well as in radio, pharmaceutical sales, and real estate, between 1994-2003.

Pezza then launched The Right Ring— the world’s first engagement ring regis try—in 2004 and ran it until 2006.

Her favorite vocation, ever, isn’t really a vocation. It’s motherhood. Annual salary: priceless.

“It’s a huge part of me,” Pezza says. “It defines me, really. I’m a mother first. Get ting to be a mother is a gift, something I’ll always cherish. It’s unbelievable how much I’ve learned from my kids.”

Francesca is a Santa Clara University freshman, thinking of majoring in journal ism. Cole hits the books and golf balls at Lake Forest High School. And Lake Bluff Middle School student/thespian Jeannie— named after guess who—might have to start thinking about working on her first Academy Award acceptance speech.

Have talent, will (perhaps) have to travel … to the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

Count on Mom Pezza to thoroughly take care of the preparations for that trip to Oscar Land, if necessary, Jeannie.

“What have I learned about myself since starting MyPinerary?” Pezza says. “That I have much more courage than I thought I had.”

Visit mypinerary.com for more informa tion. The username for MyPinerary Facebook and Instagram is “mypinerary.”

If I’m getting ready to visit a country for the first time, I’d like to know, from someone who’d just returned from the country, all about that country’s unique spots.

Annie Pezza

Will you pay too much for a home?

LAURA MICHICICH Downers Grove

who

is.

THE #1 BROKERAGE FIRM IN THE NORTH SHORE.