Kinsch Village Florist & Garden Center

The story

Valentine Kinsch bought the greenhouses at auction in 1938 for $4,500. The family grew carnations for the wholesale trade, opened a retail flower and gift shop in 1956, a nursery and garden center in 1971, and an Autumn Fun Fest from 2004 with a trackless train, haunted forest, corn maze and hay-bale mountain. A 2021 reclassification from agricultural to commercial raised the property tax from under $25,000 to $183,000 a year and forced the demolition of every building; in 2024 the Assessor's office admitted the mistake.

Everything that was here

• 1938–2022

  Kinsch Village Florist & Garden CenterNursery

  Eighty-five years of Palatine flowers ended with a county assessor's error.

  See the map in 1939 →
• 1927–1938

  Schinkowsky greenhousesNursery

  Walter Schinkowsky bought the greenhouses in 1927 and built a new one to the west. His mortgage with the First National Bank of Palatine was pocketed by former bank president Ralph Peck, ruining the bank and sending…

  See the map in 1928 →
• 1923–1927

  Palatine Floral Company (Aspinwall greenhouses)Nursery

  Hugh Aspinwall built three greenhouses here in 1923 for the Palatine Floral Company, selling hyacinths, narcissus, Easter lilies, chrysanthemums and sweet peas under the slogan "Particular People Prefer Palatine Peas."…

  See the map in 1924 →

Nearby history