Foreclosure where this pig tale may end
Estelle Walgreen has been living with three pigs on Lake Forest's exclusive east side. Her home is slated for a Lake County sheriff's foreclosure sale.
Nearly two years after Estelle Walgreen gained the right to live on Lake Forest's posh east side with her three pigs, her property is scheduled for a Lake County sheriff's foreclosure sale.
Walgreen said Tuesday she hopes the sale won't occur as planned March 24 in the Lake County courthouse. But she still expects to leave her 138-year-old mansion, with her children and pigs, one way or another.
"Wherever the path takes me, it will not have the feeling of a loss of a home," said the former wife of Charles R. Walgreen, whose family started the national drugstore chain.
Controversy erupted just days after Walgreen and her pigs moved into the six-bedroom, 6,810-square-foot estate home on Sheridan Road in March 2006. Walgreen butted heads with new neighbors Robert and Kathleen Murphy over the pigs.
About 300 Lake Forest residents signed a petition circulated by the Murphys that asked the city council to no longer allow Walgreen to keep her three pigs.
The Murphys and others said the porkers mostly lived in a garage and had the potential to threaten the safety of residents and property values.
Walgreen and Murphy supporters packed two city council meetings in August and September 2006. Robert Murphy even displayed blown-up images of a pig that escaped onto his property, and lawn furniture he said was knocked over by the animal.
Lake Forest aldermen amended the city's animal regulation code, allowing Walgreen's pigs to stay on the Sheridan Road estate until 2011.
Kathleen Murphy said she and her husband pulled their house off the real estate market because of the pigs, but they never had animosity toward Walgreen. She said she had a problem with the city not enforcing a local law that should have prohibited Walgreen from having farm animals in the residential area.
"I wish her well," said Kathleen Murphy, who's aware of the foreclosure sale. "I hope that she can find some land that's zoned for farming, where she can enjoy her animals."
Walgreen said she doesn't know where she'll move with her family and the pigs -- Pinky, 14, Piggy, 12, and Cooper, 3 -- only that it won't be in Lake Forest.
Since the city council's favorable decision in September 2006, Walgreen's Converse Industries Inc. in Kenosha, Wis., went bankrupt. She said the foreclosure on her 2.5-acre Lake Forest spread resulted because she had much personal money invested in the business where she was president and chief executive officer.
Lake County circuit court documents state Walgreen owed almost $2.9 million on her mortgage when a default judgment was entered against her Oct. 27. Walgreen said her lender has been cooperative during the foreclosure process.
"I have lawyers," Walgreen said. "I have advisers. All of these people are advising me on what to do and what's best and keeping the emotion out of it."
Attorney Samuel Harrod IV of Schaumburg is handing the scheduled sheriff's foreclosure sale of Walgreen's home to the highest and best bidder. He declined to comment.
Murphy and her husband have been trying to force the pigs off Walgreen's land through a civil lawsuit they filed in Lake County. Murphy said the issue is dead when the pigs depart.