Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded with Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in 1857, a stop for travelers making their way south to Chicago. The Lake Forest City Hall, designed by Charles Sumner Frost, was completed in 1898. It originally housed the fire department, the Lake Forest Library, and city offices.

Ragdale is the former summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation, an artist residency program that hosts creators from a number of disciplines: nonfiction and fiction writers, composers, poets, play- and screenwriters, visual artists, choreographers, as well as those from interdisciplinary interests.