Kenneth Patchen watches a rusty green car make its way up past the overgrown brush and massive trees that shade the winding entrance road.”You can tell what they want by how far they come into the property,” he says.
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Those who come looking for the building, which is 45 miles northwest of Chicago on Wooster Lake near Ingleside, can easily miss the entrance road. Set on 90 idyllic acres, the building is now abandoned and home to mostly raccoons and bats. The old nurses’ quarters across the way are home to a beehive that has taken over one wall. Only two livable cottages are left on the property (which is for sale). One of them has been occupied for the past couple of years by Patchen and his wife, Betty Ann Ralston, who often find themselves serving as informal guides for historians and curious tourists and as guards against unwanted punks and adolescent lovers.
Patchen and Ralston have collected books, articles, papers, and even family letters that reveal the history of the building, particularly the turn-of-the-century commune that built it. The Spirit Fruit Society was founded by Jacob Beilhart in Lisbon, Ohio–“spirit fruit” was his term for love. In 1904 the members of the group moved to the Chicago area, where they built by hand their Ingleside home, the “Spirit Temple,” which had its grand opening in 1906. Its two and one-half stories and full basement contained 40 rooms with oak floors, plastered walls “tinted with alabastrine,” and pressed-metal ceilings. It had, for its time, sophisticated steam-heat, lighting, and plumbing systems.
“I think anyone who’s ever been associated with this property was a utopian in one form or another,” says Patchen. “The place seems to lend itself to that.” He pauses. “I guess you can call me a utopian, too.”
Patchen was one of those who tested the grain. Now he helps answer other people’s questions about it. Most of the inquiries mailed to him come from third-world and socialist countries–the Soviet Union has a project under way to commercially grow the grain, as do Cuba, Bulgaria, and Japan. Other requests for information have come from Guatemala and other Latin American countries.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/John Sundlof.
