Ask a few people in Oak Brook whether Mayslake is open this fall and you'll get three different answers. Someone will say it's shut down entirely. Someone else will confuse it with Fullersburg Woods and tell you the dam removal is still going on. A third person, closer to the truth, will say something vague about construction. None of them are wrong exactly, but none of them have it right either, and the gap between what's actually happening at these two preserves and what people think is happening is wide enough that residents are staying off land that's fully open to walk.
Here's what's actually true. One building complex at one preserve is closed for a multi-year renovation. The 90 acres around it are not. A separate, much larger preserve two miles away was never part of the closure at all. And a smaller Oct. 3 festival with a name that sounds almost identical is happening in a completely different town.
Why the Hall Went Dark in March
Mayslake Hall and the adjoining Portiuncula Chapel closed to the public on March 1, 2026, and the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County doesn't expect to reopen them until 2027. The building isn't falling down. It's dealing with an HVAC system that district officials say now requires an unsustainable amount of labor and materials to keep running, and air conditioning that was never extended to the event hall in the first place, which has limited how the space could be used for years.
The district finished restoring the mansion's exterior facade in 2019, a project that drew on funding from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' Public Museum Capital Grants Program along with the nonprofit Friends of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. That work left the outside of the Tudor Revival mansion looking the way Chicago architect Benjamin Marshall designed it in 1919. The retreat wing, the chapel, and most of the interior never got the same treatment.
A Daily Herald report from February 2025 on the board's planning session lays out what's coming next. The district's forest preserve board approved a scaled-back version of a consultant's recommendation, covering what's called phase one and phase four of a longer plan. Phase one alone is estimated at more than $7.8 million and includes partially demolishing the retreat wing's south section, a part of the building the district doesn't consider historically significant, along with roof repairs, new windows, masonry restoration, and a second air conditioning unit to protect the archives stored on the third floor. Ellen Stoner, principal at the historic preservation firm AltusWorks, told the board that removing that wing "creates a lot of opportunities for engagement with the natural world." Commissioner Linda Painter pushed back on some of the more ambitious asks, noting there's no reason to fully renovate a basement or install air conditioning in a small chapel. Forest Preserve President Daniel Hebreard framed the whole project as a continuation of the $6 million the district already spent stabilizing the mansion's exterior in 2022, calling it a multiyear roadmap rather than a quick fix.
None of that changes what a resident can do at Mayslake this fall. It changes what they can't: no guided tours, no rentals in the hall or chapel, and no access to the retreat wing while crews work through phase one.
The 90 Acres the Closure Doesn't Touch
The building sits inside Mayslake Forest Preserve, a 90-acre property with 13 acres of wetlands, 9 acres of lakes and ponds, and a restored 15-acre savanna and prairie shaped by the same glacial forces that carved the Valparaiso Moraine more than 12,000 years ago. According to the district's own site, that surrounding preserve, including the fully fenced off-leash dog area near St. Paschal Drive, stays open daily from one hour after sunrise to one hour after sunset regardless of what's happening inside the hall.
Anglers can still fish Trinity and Mays lakes for largemouth bass, bluegill, carp, catfish, crappie, and bullhead along the northern shores, provided anyone 16 or older carries a valid Illinois fishing license. Dogs are welcome throughout the grounds on a leash no longer than 10 feet, though not inside the hall itself. Alcohol isn't permitted anywhere on the property. None of this requires the mansion to be open. The construction fence is around one building, not around the preserve.
Fullersburg Woods Was Never Part of This
The confusion gets worse because a lot of people mentally file Mayslake and Fullersburg Woods under the same heading. They're both DuPage forest preserves in Oak Brook with historic buildings on them, and both went through visible construction in recent years. But they're separate properties with separate histories, and the Fullersburg closure people remember happened years ago and finished on schedule.
Fullersburg Woods is a 220-acre preserve built around a different kind of history. It's home to the Fullersburg Woods Nature Education Center and the Graue Mill and Museum, which the district describes as the only operating waterwheel gristmill still standing in its original spot in Illinois. The Night Heron Trail here is a genuine fall destination, drawing migratory warblers, herons, and egrets along a stretch of Salt Creek shaded by oak woodlands.
The dam removal project that some residents still associate with a "closed" Fullersburg wrapped construction in fall 2023. The district's FAQ on the Salt Creek restoration is explicit that Fullersburg Woods Forest Preserve, the nature education center, and Graue Mill all stayed open the entire time, with only periodic, short-term trail closures near the York Road underpass while equipment moved through. That work is done. The trail, the mill, and the education center have been fully open and unaffected by anything happening at Mayslake.
| Mayslake Peabody Estate | Fullersburg Woods | |
|---|---|---|
| Status this fall | Mansion and chapel closed since March 1, 2026; targeted to reopen in 2027 | Fully open, no closure in progress |
| What's closed | Mayslake Hall, Portiuncula Chapel, tours, and event rentals | Nothing districtwide; earlier dam-related trail detours resolved in 2023 |
| What's still open | The 90-acre grounds, off-leash dog area, lake fishing, walking paths | Nature Education Center, Graue Mill and Museum, Night Heron Trail, Wildflower Trail |
| Signature fall draw | Prairie and savanna color across the open acreage | Migratory warblers and fall color along Salt Creek |
Two Park Districts, One Confusing Address
There's a second layer of mix-up worth flagging before the calendar turns. Oak Brook and Oakbrook Terrace are two separate municipalities that share a name, a border, and proximity to the same mall, but they run their own park districts with their own event calendars. The Oakbrook Terrace Park District's Fall Fest runs the morning of Oct. 3, from 10 a.m. to noon, spread across Terrace View Park, the Nature Center, and the Fitness Center, with free entertainment, crafts, games, a bounce house, and snacks. It's a fine event, but it's not run by, or located within, Oak Brook itself. Anyone who lives in Oak Brook and shows up expecting an Oak Brook Park District event will find themselves a few minutes away in the wrong town.
What's Actually on the Calendar This Fall
The Oak Brook Park District's own fall lineup is straightforward once you're looking at the right source. A Halloween walk in the park kicks off the season, followed by Pumpkin Swim on Oct. 16 from 6 to 8:45 p.m. at Swim Central, where kids search for pumpkins and prizes instead of pie filling. The week of Oct. 20, the district fills two dozen eggs and hides them in residents' own front yards, a small but distinctly local touch to Halloween week. November opens with the Park District's Birthday Celebration on Nov. 6 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., followed two days later by a Veterans Appreciation Luncheon on Nov. 8 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The season closes out with Everyday Winter Lights at Central Park, running from Nov. 20 through Jan. 3, a half-mile lit walking loop open nightly from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. That one runs long enough to bridge Thanksgiving and New Year's, giving residents a low-key, recurring reason to get outside well after the leaves are down.
None of this depends on Mayslake Hall reopening. The mansion's timeline runs on its own multiyear schedule, tied to a $7.8 million first phase and a district capital budget that grew to $151 million for 2026, a 5 percent increase over the prior year's $143.7 million, with $69.6 million of it earmarked specifically for capital projects across the county's preserves. Mayslake isn't an isolated repair job. It's one piece of a broader construction cycle that's also closing Maple Meadows Golf Preserve out in Wood Dale until summer 2027. Seen at that scale, a mansion closed for renovation looks less like neglect and more like a district spending down a purposeful budget, one preserve at a time.
The walking paths, the dog park, the fishing spots, the Night Heron Trail, all of it is exactly as open this October as it was last October. The only thing that changed is one building, and it was never the reason most people went to Mayslake in the first place.
If you're already planning your next Oak Brook walk around Winter Lights or the Night Heron Trail, The Schiller Team would love to hear what else you'd want covered about the neighborhoods we call home.