Lannon, WI

Lannon was a stone town before it was a village. The village's history page says its namesake, William N. Lannon, settled inside the old Town of Menomonee in 1842, and his settlement was called Lannon Springs for the natural springs on his land. The Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society dates William Lannon's arrival to 1834 and says he built a one-room house with stone walls two to three feet thick from rock lying on the ground. The sources disagree on the year; both agree the stone came first.

Quarrying started almost immediately. The historical society credits Isaac Howard with selling stone from a Lannon quarry in 1838, and the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee calls it the first limestone quarry in Waukesha County. By 1855 at least a dozen quarries were hauling paving stone to Milwaukee by wagon. A short rail line built in 1885 connected Lannon to the railroad at Butler, and a spur reached the Hadfield quarries in 1889 and 1890.

Joseph Hadfield gave the village its center. The village history says Hadfield platted the land now covered by Lake Street, Vine Street, State Street, Bay Street, Hemlock Lane, Lannon Road and part of Good Hope Road in 1890 and built homes there for his quarry workers. The area was called Hadfield, and sometimes "Stone City." A post office named Lannon opened in August 1890.

Incorporation took two tries. A 1928 petition for 640 acres was denied because it contained too much quarry land. The petition was cut to about 300 acres, and on January 14, 1930, Lannon became the 14th village in Waukesha County. The cut left Lannon Springs and the land around today's Menomonee Park in the Town of Menomonee, which is now Menomonee Falls.

Lannon nearly merged with its neighbor once. The Menomonee Falls village history records that in 1956 the governments of the Town of Menomonee and the Village of Lannon approved a merger, a petition drive forced a referendum, and the merger failed in the town. Two years later the Village of Menomonee Falls annexed the whole town, which is why Lannon is now almost surrounded by it. Lannon stayed small for decades: Wikipedia's census table shows 434 residents in 1930, 1,084 in 1960, 924 in 1990 and 1,107 in 2010.

Lannon stone is a buff-colored, blocky dolomite from the Niagara Escarpment, the same rock ledge that runs under much of the Great Lakes. Wikipedia's entry says fourteen quarries were producing it by the early 1890s, first for paving and kilns and then for solid stone buildings, and that after World War II the industry shifted to ornamental landscaping stone and thin veneer. If you have seen a stone-faced ranch house anywhere in southeast Wisconsin, you have probably seen Lannon stone.

The quarries still run. In January 2025, TMJ4 reported four quarries within about a mile of Good Hope Road and Lannon Road, operated by Lannon Stone Products, Lemke Stone, Halquist Stone and Monacelli Stone. Lannon Stone Products told the station it can load 80 to 100 tons every 90 seconds, about 1,000 tons an hour, and that its Good Hope Road quarry has about 100 to 120 years of mining left. The village history names Dawson, Halquist and Monacelli as the largest operators today, each in business for generations, and Wikipedia notes that John Halquist built one of the state's largest stone companies on Lannon stone.

Buyers often ask whether the pits will become housing. The public record points the other way. Lannon Stone Products said it has planted trees around its quarry and plans to turn it into a park, letting it fill with water to become a lake once the pumps are shut off, similar to the quarry pond at Menomonee Park. The new homes in Lannon are being built on former farmland, TMJ4 reported, not on reclaimed quarries. I found no public plan to put housing in a Lannon quarry.

Living next to a working quarry has practical effects. Ask about blasting schedules, truck routes on Good Hope Road and Lannon Road, and dust, and drive past at a weekday morning before you buy near one.

Lannon sits in the northeast corner of Waukesha County, surrounded on most sides by Menomonee Falls and bordered by Sussex to the southwest. The 2024 Census Gazetteer measures it at 2.47 square miles of land. Main Street (County F and Highway 74), Lannon Road and Good Hope Road are the main roads.

It is one of the fastest-growing places in Wisconsin. TMJ4 (January 2025) reported the state Department of Administration's estimate that Lannon grew from 1,355 residents in the 2020 census to 2,195 in 2024, up 61.99%, the highest percentage growth of any Wisconsin municipality over those four years. The state's 2025 Town, Village and City Taxes report uses a January 2025 estimate of 2,212.

The housing count tells the same story. The 2020 census counted 598 housing units, per Wikipedia, and the 2020-2024 ACS averages 765. The ACS counts 432 single-family detached homes, 79 attached single-family homes, 154 units in buildings of two or more and 106 mobile homes. Of the 718 occupied homes, 610, about 85%, are owner-occupied.

Lannon is a working village. The quarries are its oldest industry, and the business district along Main Street and Lannon Road carries the restaurants and services. Groceries and big-box shopping are a short drive away in Menomonee Falls, Sussex or Germantown.

The village is also changing quickly: the population grew 62% in four years, the elementary school is over its original capacity, and the water system is still adding capacity. The low assessment level means a revaluation could reshape individual bills.

Lannon splits cleanly into old and new. The old village is the 1890 Hadfield plat and the streets around it. The new Lannon is the subdivisions and condominiums built since 2018 on former farmland at the edges.

The old village covers Lake Street, Vine Street, State Street, Bay Street, Hemlock Lane and the stretch of Lannon Road and Good Hope Road that Hadfield platted, per the village history. Some of its houses are the quarry houses themselves. The historical society's account quotes a longtime resident saying that five stone houses on Lannon Road, ten on Vine Street and at least four on Lake Street originally stood at the Hadfield quarry and were moved into the village and remodeled. The same account describes twelve four-room stone houses built at the quarry, each shared by two households.

The new subdivisions are where most of the growth went. Overstone, a condominium development off Main Street, was the first project built with tax increment financing when the village's first district was created in 2018; a search summary of a 2018 Journal Sentinel report puts it at 172 units. Whispering Ridge Estates North, off Main Street next to the Bugline Trail, was marketed in a 2021 builder flyer with cul-de-sac lots on village water and sewer, minimum sizes of 1,600 square feet for a ranch and 1,900 for a two-story, and home and lot packages then starting in the $500,000s. TMJ4 identified Whispering Ridge as one of the neighborhoods built in the past decade.

The Main Street and Lannon Road corner is the commercial center. The stretch of Main Street east toward Menomonee Falls carries the newest housing and the land now in play for the next projects.

Lannon's housing is newer than most villages of its age because of the recent boom. The 2020-2024 ACS puts the median year built at 1995. It counts 111 homes built in 2020 or later, 95 in the 2010s, 82 in the 2000s and 202 in the 1990s, against 107 built before 1940 and fewer than 50 in each decade from the 1940s through the 1980s. About 64% of the homes date to 1990 or later.

The oldest homes are the stone and frame houses of the old village, some of them moved from the quarry, as described above. The 1950s and 1960s added a modest layer. The 1990s added the largest single wave before the current one.

The building types are mixed for a village this small. Besides 432 detached houses and 79 attached homes, the ACS counts 33 units in two-unit buildings, 38 in three- to nine-unit buildings, 77 in buildings of 10 to 49 units, and 106 mobile homes. That last figure matters when you read the census values below: mobile homes pull the census median far down.

On an old-village house, I'd ask about the foundation and stone condition, the electrical panel, the sewer lateral and the water connection date, since the village water main reached many streets only in 2021. On new construction, read the recorded restrictions, the developer's agreement and what is still owed on the subdivision's streets and landscaping.

Zillow's home value index, which estimates the value of a typical home whether it sold or not, puts Lannon at $519,926 for August 2026. That is up 6.4% from $488,808 a year earlier, after a dip from $512,259 in August 2024, and up from $415,681 in August 2021 and $316,264 in August 2016. Zillow's top-tier index, for the upper third of homes, was $635,472.

Over ten years, that is a gain of about 64%, almost exactly the same as Menomonee Falls over the same period, while Butler rose about 81% from a much lower base. Lannon's path was less smooth: Zillow's index fell about 4.6% from August 2024 to August 2025 before recovering, a swing that can happen when a small village's index absorbs a wave of new-construction sales.

On the same index for August 2026, Lannon sits with the newer-construction villages around it. Sussex was $518,858, Menomonee Falls $439,642, Lisbon $588,992, the City of Brookfield $528,294 and Elm Grove $696,876. Butler, the other small village in this guide set, was $302,215.

The census figure disagrees sharply, and the reason is in the housing mix. The 2020-2024 ACS puts the median value of owner-occupied homes at $260,000, but with a margin of error of about $148,000, which makes it close to useless. The same table counts 142 owner homes valued at $60,000 to $69,999, almost certainly the mobile homes, alongside 102 valued at $500,000 to $749,999. Zillow's index weighs the full stock differently. For a detached house in a newer subdivision, Zillow's number is the better guide; for the whole village, neither tells the full story.

Lannon is not a luxury market and is not a lake market. The upper end is new construction in the $500,000s and $600,000s; I found no public report of a Lannon sale over $1 million. The ACS median gross rent is $773.

I'm not using MLS statistics on this page. Wisconsin sold data comes through a different MLS than the Illinois one I work in.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the tax bill is the first thing people compare, and Lannon's bill needs one extra step to read. The Waukesha County 2025 tax rate sheet, for bills payable in 2026, shows a gross rate of $17.82 per $1,000 of assessed value in the Hamilton School District part of Lannon and a net rate of $16.67 after the $1.15 state school levy credit. In the small Menomonee Falls School District part, the net rate is $16.17.

Those look like the highest rates on the sheet. They are not what they seem. Lannon's assessments sit at only 65.96% of market value on the county sheet, and 66% on the DOR's 2025 report. Applied to market value, the rates are about $10.99 per $1,000 in Hamilton and $10.66 in Menomonee Falls, in line with neighbors. The DOR's own average rates for the village are 1.173% gross and 1.097% effective, and Ownwell's Waukesha County page (April 2026) puts the Lannon median at 1.11%.

An assessment level that low usually means a revaluation is coming, in my read; when it happens, assessed values rise and the mill rate falls, and an individual bill can move either way. Ask the assessor's office when the next revaluation is scheduled.

The second thing to know is the tax increment districts. The DOR shows Lannon's full value at $394,458,300 but only $224,922,800 outside its two districts, and $1,986,691 of the $4,628,083 total tax, about 43%, went to tax increments in 2025. A June 2025 presentation to the village board says the first district, created July 9, 2018, held $113.3 million of incremental value and must close by July 9, 2038. That increment pays for the infrastructure behind the new subdivisions until the district closes.

Here is a worked example. A $520,000 home in the Hamilton part at $10.99 per $1,000 of market value carries about $5,715 before the two smaller credits. The lottery and gaming credit, for a Wisconsin primary residence only, was $180.41 in Hamilton on the county sheet, and the first dollar credit $60.14. That brings the bill to roughly $5,475. For comparison, Ownwell's Lake County, Illinois data (April 2026) puts Vernon Hills' median effective rate at 2.75%, about $14,300 on the same $520,000.

Against its neighbors on the DOR's 2025 effective rates, Lannon's 1.097% sits between Menomonee Falls at 1.019% and Sussex at 1.131%, above Lisbon at 0.877% and well below Butler at 1.350%. Across the county line, Wauwatosa was 1.800% and Brown Deer 1.899%.

When you sell, Wisconsin charges a real estate transfer fee of $3 per $1,000, about $1,560 on a $520,000 sale.

This is general information, not tax advice. Your actual bill depends on the parcel, its assessment, the school district and the credits you qualify for.

Nearly all of Lannon is in the Hamilton School District. The DOR's 2025 apportionment puts $216.5 million of Lannon's taxable value in Hamilton and $8.4 million, about 4%, in the Menomonee Falls School District. Wikipedia's district page says Hamilton serves most of Lannon, and the village's school page links both districts. Check the district on the tax bill of any house near the village's edges.

Lannon has its own elementary school.

Growth is pressing on the building. In January 2025, the Lannon Elementary principal told TMJ4 that capacity was 280 students when he arrived and enrollment was 350, and that the district's $25 million referendum would add classrooms and rework drop-off traffic at the school. The district had already opened Silver Spring Intermediate about four years earlier to relieve its elementary and middle schools.

Assignment follows the address; confirm it with the district before you write an offer.

Lannon switched much of the village from private wells to public water only a few years ago. The village's policy updates record a USDA-funded water main project completed in 2021 and a board decision in January 2022 that every property with a water main available by November 23, 2021, had to connect by June 1, 2022. The village hired an outside reviewer, which concluded the village had authority under state law to require connection to the system. A residents' group opposed the project, the impact fees and the special assessments. For a buyer, that means two questions on any older house: was it connected, and are any special assessments or impact fees from the project still owed?

The project also paid for work on private property. The same page says the village used a contractor for the plumbing on residential lots, that residential work had to be finished by December 31, 2021, to stay eligible for grant money, and that the board declined to extend that deadline because it would have cost $2,000 more per property. The village's private property updates show lawn and driveway restoration still being worked through in mid-2022, so on a house in the project area, look at the yard and driveway where the line came in.

The system runs on wells. The village's 2025 water quality report lists two active groundwater wells, one 353 feet deep. The village's home page says its inventory of service lines found no lead or galvanized-downstream-of-lead services. The May 2025 village board minutes show the board pursuing a state planning grant to study a third water source shared with the Village of Sussex.

Sewer is municipal. The same minutes describe a Lannon-owned interceptor sewer whose maintenance costs are shared with other communities; a 2025 cleaning and televising job was quoted at about $33,000, with roughly $7,200 falling to Lannon. New subdivisions such as Whispering Ridge were built with village water and sewer.

Fire and police are partly shared. The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee says Lannon's fire department consolidated with the Menomonee Falls Fire Department in 2015 and that its police department is part-time, assisted by the Waukesha County Sheriff.

The village's outdoor space is mostly quarry land put to new use. The village's parks page describes Waukesha County's Menomonee Park as 464 acres of rolling fields, maple woods, cattail marsh and wetland around a 16-acre quarry lake, with remnants of the 1880 to 1900 quarrying era, including an old stone crusher and the rail spur to the Bugline. The park sits just outside the 1930 village line, on the land the incorporation left out.

The Bugline Recreational Trail is the old quarry railroad. The same page calls it a 12-mile crushed-limestone trail for hiking, biking and running, with a separate equestrian portion, and notes that the view down into the working quarries from the trail is worth the stop. It connects Lannon east to Menomonee Falls and west toward Sussex.

Baseball is the other local identity. Joeck's Park off north Lannon Road holds Schneider Field, home of the Lannon Stonemen amateur team, and the village calls itself the "Amateur Baseball Capital of Waukesha County." The village history adds a piece of trivia: on September 7, 1979, Joecks Field hosted a professional slow-pitch softball doubleheader that the village describes as the first live broadcast on the newly formed ESPN. In May 2025, the village board approved a state agreement under which WisDOT will pay 80% of a pedestrian bridge and path from Joeck's Park to Village Hall, per the board minutes.

Lannon decided to grow, and it used tax increment financing to do it. The June 2025 district presentation says the first district was created in July 2018 as a mixed-use district and amended in 2022, with development agreements from 2018 and 2020 reimbursing the developer from new taxes over several phases, up to set caps. The district's spending period ends in 2033. The same presentation describes the first district as performing well because of growth and development, and the board minutes say the same.

Water capacity is the limit to watch. The May 12, 2025 village board minutes show the board studying a third water source with Sussex, and approving a change order on a 2024 contract to upgrade the Whispering Ridge well house with a larger standby generator. Growth that outruns the wells would mean new costs for the water utility.

The quarries are not part of the housing pipeline. As described above, the operators plan parks and lakes when mining ends, a century or more away for at least one pit. Next door, Menomonee Falls is adding hundreds of homes at Lannon Road and Mill Road and on the former Silver Spring Country Club, which will add traffic on the roads Lannon shares.

Lannon is a Milwaukee-area village on the edge of the metro. These are free-flow estimates from OpenStreetMap routing (OSRM), computed in October 2026 from the center of the village. Real trips vary with traffic, quarry trucks and season.

From Vernon Hills, Illinois, Lannon is about 80 miles, roughly 1 hour 45 minutes. Downtown Chicago is about 106 miles and 2 hours 15 minutes, and O'Hare about 102 miles and 2 hours 25 minutes. Downtown Milwaukee is about 22 miles and 36 minutes, and Milwaukee Mitchell Airport about 27 miles and 44 minutes. Madison is about 72 miles and 1 hour 30 minutes.

Locally, Brookfield Square is about 14 miles and 25 minutes away, and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center area in Wauwatosa about 15 miles and 26 minutes on the same routing.

From Lake County, the usual route is I-94 north into Milwaukee and then I-41/US 45 north to Main Street or County Line Road, then west into the village. The 2021 Whispering Ridge flyer pointed buyers to easy access to I-94 and Highway 41/45.

There is no Metra option worth using; the Kenosha terminal is about 57 miles and 1 hour 20 minutes away. The rail link to Chicago is Amtrak's Hiawatha between Milwaukee and Chicago Union Station. The Milwaukee Intermodal Station is about 21 miles and 34 minutes from Lannon.

Police service in Lannon comes from the village's part-time Lannon Police Department, assisted by the Waukesha County Sheriff's Office, per the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. You can reach the department through the Village of Lannon. Fire service has been through the Menomonee Falls Fire Department since 2015.

I don't characterize the safety of any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can contact the department or look it up on the FBI Crime Data Explorer.