More than just a name: The Fabyans’ fateful move to Geneva

These days, if people have heard of the Fabyans at all, it might just be because a road and some attractions are named after them in Kane County.People might not know how much the Fabyans contributed to the area’s history – and even had involvement in ending World War I.When Chicago Gilded Age tycoon “Colonel” George Fabyan and his wife Nelle set up home on the Fox River in Geneva 1905, that didn’t just eventually give us Fabyan Parkway, Fabyan Forest Preserve and Fabyan Villa Museum and Japanese Garden.The villa that the couple hired Frank Lloyd Wright to renovate, and the surrounding 300 acres they acquired, “soon became a lavish showplace complete with fountains, gardens, a Roman-style swimming pool, a Dutch-style windmill, a private zoo, a working lighthouse, a boathouse, greenhouses, tennis courts, laboratories and more,” according to Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley, which runs what is now the Fabyan Villa Museum.But the Fabyans were interested in far more than showing off