Salem Lakes, WI

Salem Lakes is a new name on an old place. On February 14, 2017, the Town of Salem and the Village of Silver Lake merged into one village, according to the village's own About page. The Wikipedia entry for Salem Lakes says the new village took in Silver Lake along with the communities of Trevor, Wilmot and Camp Lake. The old town name still shows up everywhere: on the post office, on the Salem School District and on many listing pages, which is why a buyer can search "Salem, WI" and land in the right place without knowing the village exists.

The two halves have different histories. Wikipedia's account of the town says the Bullen brothers surveyed and platted a village on the east bank of the Fox River in the 1830s, hoping Salem would become the head of navigation on the river, and that the crossing became known as Bullen's Bridge. Silver Lake was its own village for 90 years: Wikipedia's Silver Lake page gives its incorporation date as August 27, 1926, and its area as 1.35 square miles before the merger.

Wilmot, on the Fox River in the southwest corner, is older still as a named place. Its Wikipedia entry says a post office has operated there since 1849 and that the outdoor retailer Gander Mountain was founded in Wilmot. The lakes have a working past too. The village's lake page notes that some of them once held ice harvesting mills before they turned to recreation.

The merger matters to a buyer for a practical reason. Older records, older plat maps and some county documents still say "Town of Salem," and the village's own 2023-2027 recreation plan quotes parts of the old town comprehensive plan. When I read a title commitment or a survey here, I expect to see both names.

Salem Lakes is big for a village. The Census 2024 gazetteer puts it at 30.358 square miles of land and 2.807 square miles of water. The 2020 census counted 14,601 people, and the Department of Revenue's 2025 Town, Village and City Taxes report estimates 14,462, with a full value of $2,498,719,200. It runs from the Illinois state line north to Highway 50, and from the Fox River and Wilmot in the west to the Highway 83 corridor and the Bristol line in the east. Antioch, Illinois sits just south of it.

The village has one name and at least four postal ones. Listings use Salem (53168), Silver Lake (53170), Trevor (53179) and Wilmot (53192), and on October 5, 2026 I also saw a Cross Lake listing in the village carrying a Bristol 53104 ZIP. All of those can be the same Village of Salem Lakes. The reverse is also true: a Paddock Lake or Bristol address next door is a different municipality with its own tax rate.

Inside the village, the line that matters most is the school district, because it sets the tax rate. Salem Lakes is split among four K-8 districts and two high school districts, and the Kenosha County 2025 rate sheet lists five combinations for the village. Two houses a mile apart can sit in different districts with different bills.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the buyers I talk to usually assume a single village means a single tax rate and a single school system. In Salem Lakes, neither is true, and the first thing I'd check on any listing is the school district printed on the tax bill.

Silver Lake gives you size and depth, Camp and Center give you a connected lake system, and the small lakes give you frontage at a lower price.

The trade-offs are concrete. The tax rate depends on the school district, and the gap between the lowest and highest combination is $0.96 per $1,000. Most homes appear to be on private wells. Mooring buoys are banned. And the top of the lakefront market tops out around $1.5 million in today's listings.

The address can also mislead you. Four post offices, a Bristol ZIP on some lake parcels, and old "Town of Salem" records mean I'd always confirm the municipality, the school district, the sewer connection and any lake district levy on the exact parcel before falling for a house.

I think about Salem Lakes in six parts, because the lake, the school district and the sewer situation change from one to the next.

The first is Salem itself, along Highway 83 (Antioch Road) and County Highway C in the east-central part of the village. Village Hall is at 9814 Antioch Road, Salem Elementary is on Antioch Road, and Westosha Central High School is just to the north on Highway 50. The village's 2023-2027 Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan places Community Park, at 88.14 acres the village's largest, near the center of the village on 256th Avenue, close to the Falcon Heights and Hawk's Run subdivisions it names.

The second is Silver Lake, the former village on the northwest side, built around School Street, Prosser Street and the lake of the same name. Riverview Elementary sits at 300 Prosser Street, and Silver Lake Road follows the lake's west shore.

The third is the Camp and Center lakes area in the middle of the village, with Camp Lake Park on 270th Avenue, boat launches on both lakes, and a mix of older lake cottages and newer houses on side streets numbered in the 100s.

The fourth is Trevor, south of Camp Lake along Wilmot Road (County Highway C), home to Trevor-Wilmot Grade School at 26325 Wilmot Road, the village's Fire Station 1 and its wastewater office. Rock Lake sits just east of Trevor.

The fifth is Wilmot, in the southwest on the Fox River, where Wilmot High School, the Kenosha County Fairgrounds and the parking side of Wilmot Mountain are found.

The sixth is the southeast lake country: Hooker Lake and Montgomery Lake to the north, Cross Lake and Voltz Lake near the state line, and Lake Shangrila on the Bristol border. The Census geocoder puts most of this area in the Salem School District and Westosha Central.

The village's lake page says Salem Lakes is home to nine lakes. The Wisconsin DNR's lake pages give the basic facts for each, and they vary a great deal in size, depth and public access. Here is how they compare, using the DNR's figures as fetched on October 5, 2026.

Silver Lake is the largest and deepest: 516 acres with a maximum depth of 44 feet, three public boat landings, and musky, walleye, northern pike and both bass species on the DNR list. Its water is described as moderately clear. Camp Lake is 439 acres but only 19 feet deep at most, with three public landings. Center Lake, connected in management to Camp Lake, is 126 acres and 28 feet deep with one landing.

The smaller lakes have their own character. Hooker Lake is 103 acres and 24 feet deep with three landings. Cross Lake is 89 acres and, at 35 feet, deeper than its size suggests. Montgomery Lake is 62 acres and 23 feet deep, and the village notes it is on the DNR's list of healthiest lakes. Rock Lake is 44 acres and 33 feet deep with two landings and trout on the fish list. Voltz Lake (61 acres, 24 feet) and Lake Shangrila (74 acres, 24 feet) show no public landing on their DNR pages. Benet Lake, 110 acres, lies along the Bristol line with Lake Shangrila, and Peat Lake, 43 acres and 8 feet deep, is the shallowest.

The acreage depends on who you ask. The village's recreation plan gives different numbers for several lakes, such as 464 acres for Silver Lake and 461 for Camp Lake, and counts ten named lakes wholly or partly in the village. I use the DNR figures here and would treat any lake's acreage on a listing as approximate.

Each major lake has its own management body, and the village lists them: the Camp/Center Lakes Rehabilitation District, the Hooker Lake Management District, the Silver Lake Management District and the Voltz Lake Management District, plus the Lake Shangri-La property owners association, the Rock Lake Restoration Association and, per the DNR, a Cross Lake improvement association. In Wisconsin a lake district is a unit of government that can carry its own line on your tax bill, while an association is a voluntary group. Ask which one covers the lake and whether a levy applies.

I'll be direct about the luxury question. Salem Lakes is not a $2 million lakefront market today. It is a lake market where good frontage on the bigger lakes sells in the high six figures and the best listings ask about $1.3 million to $1.5 million.

The top of the market on October 5, 2026 was two listings. On LakePlace, a house on Silver Lake Road listed on August 7, 2026 was asking $1,495,000: built in 1890, 1,856 square feet on 0.59 acres, with 100 feet of frontage, a pier and a boathouse, and a 2025 tax bill of $13,215. On Camp Lake, a 1940 log home on 6.40 acres with about 1,500 feet of shoreline was asking $1,299,000, with 2025 taxes of $10,621. Notice that both prices are driven by the land and the frontage, not the square footage.

Below that sits a deeper tier. The same day, two Cross Lake houses were asking $899,000 (about 65 feet of frontage, built 1998, listing) and $869,000 (100 feet, built 1941). Camp Lake had a renovated house at $625,000 and another at $399,900; Center Lake had listings from $269,900 to $599,900. Vacant lake lots ranged from $52,900 on Camp Lake to $274,900 for two acres near Hooker Lake.

Closed sales tell the same story. Redfin's public data for the Silver Lake area recorded one sale at $850,000 in February 2026, the highest single-month median there in the two years through May 2026. Zillow's top-third index for August 2026 was $602,545 in the Salem 53168 ZIP, $564,645 in Trevor 53179 and $464,684 in Silver Lake 53170.

I separate three tiers on every lake here. Lakefront means your own frontage and pier rights. Lake access means a deeded easement, an association beach or a shared pier. Off-lake means you trailer to a public launch. On these lakes, those three can sit on the same street and differ by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Salem Lakes is mostly owner-occupied single-family homes. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 6,191 housing units. About 81% (4,994) are detached houses, about 4% (240) are single-family attached units, and 319, about 5%, are mobile homes. Buildings with five or more units account for only about 7%. Of the 5,775 occupied homes, 4,806, about 83%, are owner-occupied.

The lake history shows up in the vacancy numbers. The survey counts 274 homes (plus or minus 168) held for seasonal or recreational use, a little over 4% of all units. That is far below a resort market like Geneva Lake, and it tells you most of Salem Lakes, including most lake streets, is now year-round housing.

The housing stock spans a century. The median home was built in 1987, newer than Kenosha County's 1975. The 1990s were the biggest decade, with 1,515 homes (about 24%), followed by 1,022 from the 2000s (about 17%). At the older end, 618 homes predate 1940 and another 1,163 come from the 1940s and 1950s. Since 2010 the survey counts 379. On the lake streets, the older numbers are the ones you see: small cottages from the 1920s to 1950s, many winterized and expanded more than once.

The survey puts the median value of an owner-occupied home at $316,100 (plus or minus $19,233), above Kenosha County's $265,500, and the median gross rent at $1,184. Both are five-year averages of owner estimates, so they trail the market section below.

Each era brings its own inspection list. An expanded lake cottage can have a crawlspace, mixed framing from several additions, and a septic or sewer lateral history worth reading. A 1990s subdivision house is on its second roof and furnace, with original windows and decks reaching the end of their life. The expectation I most often reset with Illinois buyers is that a newer house is maintenance-free. At 30 years, the big systems are coming due.

The village-wide market is a steady, mid-priced market. Zillow's typical home value for Salem Lakes, which Zillow still files under "Salem," was $376,468 in August 2026, up 5.2% from $357,824 a year earlier and 10.8% over two years. Kenosha County as a whole was $337,519, up 6.9%. Lake County, Illinois was $399,525 on the same index, so a typical Salem Lakes home runs about $23,000 below a typical Lake County home.

By ZIP, the Zillow ZIP index for August 2026 was $370,144 in Salem 53168 (up 5.6%), $364,709 in Trevor 53179 (up 5.7%) and $347,640 in Silver Lake 53170 (up 2.1%). Silver Lake's slower gain is worth noting, though one ZIP index over one year is not a trend.

Sales volume is steady. Redfin's monthly data counts 165 Salem Lakes sales in the 12 months from June 2025 through May 2026, against 168 the year before. Monthly medians ranged from $260,000 to $442,500. In May 2026, the latest month, the median was $400,000 on 13 sales, homes took a median of 47 days to sell, they sold at about 100% of list price, and 36 homes were for sale. Price per square foot was $235, up from $203 in May 2025.

Zillow and Redfin answer different questions. Zillow estimates the value of all homes; Redfin reports what sold that month. With 8 to 20 sales a month and a mix of lake cottages and subdivision houses, the monthly median here can move $100,000 on the mix alone.

How I'd think about pricing here: a 1990s or 2000s subdivision house in Salem competes with Paddock Lake, Bristol and Antioch, Illinois. A lake cottage competes on frontage first and condition second. And the school district behind the address changes the tax bill, which changes what a buyer can afford, so I'd compare houses within the same district.

Wisconsin property tax uses different vocabulary from Illinois. Your assessor sets an assessed value. The Department of Revenue sets a full (equalized) value for the whole village. The ratio between them is the assessment level, and the mill rate, quoted in dollars per $1,000, applies to assessed value. The DOR's 2025 report puts Salem Lakes at a 0.96 assessment level, meaning assessments average 96% of market value, and its average effective rate at 1.298% of full value after the school levy credit.

The average hides five different rates. The Kenosha County 2025 tax rate sheet lists Salem Lakes with an aggregate ratio of 0.9553 and these mill rates per $1,000 of assessed value: Salem grade school with Central High, $13.07; Salem grade school with Wilmot High, $13.65; Riverview (Silver Lake J1) with Wilmot High, $13.33; Wheatland with Wilmot High, $13.65; and Trevor-Wilmot with Wilmot High, $14.03. The same sheet gives a lottery and gaming credit of $195.55 to $220.16 and a first dollar credit of $65.18 to $73.38, depending on the district.

A worked example. A $400,000 house at the 0.9553 ratio would be assessed at about $382,135. In the Salem and Central combination, $13.07 per $1,000 gives about $4,995. Subtract the $195.55 lottery credit and the $65.18 first dollar credit and a primary-residence bill would be about $4,734, or roughly 1.18% of price. The same house in Trevor-Wilmot at $14.03 would come to about $5,068 after credits, roughly 1.27%. That is about $334 a year from the school district line alone.

The lottery credit applies only to a primary residence, which matters on a lake. Take the $1,495,000 Silver Lake listing in the Riverview and Wilmot combination: assessed at 0.9553, the rate would put a new owner's bill near $18,970 after the first dollar credit and with no lottery credit if it is a second home. Its actual 2025 bill was $13,215, which shows how far a parcel's assessment can sit below a new purchase price until the next revaluation. I'd budget off the price, not the seller's bill.

Three other lines show up. The village's tax page says stormwater utility and garbage and recycling charges are added to the tax bill, and unpaid sewer charges can be too. Lake district levies may appear on lake parcels. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $3 per $1,000 of value, normally paid by the seller. This is general information, not tax advice; your bill depends on the parcel, the district and the assessor.

Lake property in Salem Lakes comes with three layers of rules: state shoreland law, the DNR's pier rules and the village's own lake ordinances.

Shoreland zoning first. The village's zoning page says all zoning is handled through Kenosha County zoning administrators who staff the village, and it offers a shoreland permit application and the village zoning code. State law sets the floor. For a village whose shorelands came from a town under county shoreland zoning, Wis. Stat. 61.353 requires a village shoreland ordinance with a setback of at least 50 feet from the ordinary high-water mark, with a principal building allowed as close as the average of its neighbors or 35 feet, whichever is greater, when it sits between two existing homes. The county standards in NR 115.05 use a 75-foot setback, a 35-foot vegetative buffer and a 15% impervious surface baseline. Which numbers apply to a given lot is a question for the zoning office before you plan an addition.

Piers next. Under the DNR's pier rules for ch. 30 and NR 320, a new pier is exempt from a DNR permit if it is no more than 6 feet wide, with a loading platform of no more than 200 square feet, extends only to 3 feet of water depth or the depth needed to moor a boat, and stays in your riparian zone. Boat slips are limited to two for the first 50 feet of shoreline and one for each additional full 50 feet.

The village adds its own rules. At its June 10, 2024 meeting, the Village Board voted against mooring buoys, and the lake page states plainly that none are allowed on the village's nine lakes. If a listing shows a buoy, ask about it. Golf carts can be driven on village roads from April 1 through October 31 with a $50 permit, inspection and insurance, according to the golf cart page, and a separate ordinance allows ATVs and UTVs on village-maintained roads posted at 35 mph or less.

Public launches are spelled out on the boat launch page: two on Camp Lake (270th Avenue and 278th Avenue), one on Center Lake (95th Street), one on Hooker Lake (83rd Street) and one on Silver Lake (Cogswell Drive and Manor Drive). Annual stickers run April 1 to March 31 and cost $20 for property owners with proof of ownership and Wisconsin boat registration, or $30 otherwise. Parking is prohibited on all residential streets, so launch parking is limited.

Sewer is a village service. The village's sewer utility page says sewage is collected through village-owned mains and treated at the village's wastewater treatment plant, and lists a single-family residential rate of $182 per quarter, billed quarterly, with unpaid balances moved to the property tax bill in the fall. The utility office is at 28733 Wilmot Road in Trevor. The 2018 sewer master plan covers both the Salem and former Silver Lake treatment plants, phosphorus compliance and capital improvements, and in 2026 the village is rehabilitating sanitary sewers in the Valmar and Yaws subdivisions.

Drinking water is different. The village website lists a sewer utility but no water utility, and its flooding page points owners to well test kits. On any listing, I'd confirm whether the house has a private well, get a recent water test, and confirm the sewer connection rather than assume it, because older lake parcels and rural parcels can differ.

Fire and ambulance service come from Salem Lakes Fire/Rescue, which the village's fire page lists at two stations: 11252 254th Court in Trevor and 8339 Antioch Road in Salem. A burn permit is required for any fire larger than one cubic yard. Electric and gas service come from We Energies, and garbage service from a contracted hauler, per the village's new-resident page.

Practical rules matter on lake streets. The village prohibits parking on all residential streets near launches, golf carts and ATVs have permit rules, and stormwater and garbage charges ride on the tax bill. None of that is unusual, but it is different from most Lake County, Illinois villages.

Salem Lakes uses the Wisconsin pattern of K-8 districts feeding union high school districts, and it is split more ways than most. The DOR's 2025 report apportions the village's value among four K-8 districts (Salem, Silver Lake J1, Trevor-Wilmot Consolidated and Wheatland J1) and two high school districts (Westosha Central and Wilmot).

Wikipedia's summary, which matches the Census geocoder points I checked, is that Salem School serves the eastern half, Riverview serves Silver Lake and part of Camp Lake, Trevor-Wilmot serves the southwest including Trevor, Wilmot and part of Camp Lake, and Wheatland Center serves a small rural piece of the northwest. For high school, Westosha Central serves the eastern half and Wilmot High the western half. The county rate sheet also shows a Salem-with-Wilmot combination, so some Salem K-8 parcels feed Wilmot.

The NCES 2024-25 directory gives the addresses: Salem Elementary at 8828 Antioch Road, Riverview at 300 Prosser Street in Silver Lake, Trevor-Wilmot at 26325 Wilmot Road, Wheatland Center at 6606 368th Avenue in Burlington, Westosha Central at 24617 75th Street in Salem, and Wilmot High at 11112 308th Avenue in Wilmot.

Two practical points. And because the district changes the tax rate by up to $0.96 per $1,000, the school line on a listing is a cost item as well as a school question. Assignment follows the parcel, so confirm every address with the district.

Salem Lakes sits right on the Illinois line, and that is its biggest location advantage. Highway 83 runs south from Salem into Antioch, Illinois, Highway 50 crosses the north edge east to I-94 and Kenosha, and County Highways C and W tie Trevor and Wilmot to the rest of the village.

I ran free-flow routes on the OSRM routing engine, which uses OpenStreetMap roads and no traffic, on October 5, 2026. Treat these as best-case estimates. From Village Hall on Highway 83, the Antioch Metra station is about 3.9 road miles and 7 minutes away. Vernon Hills is about 25 miles and 42 minutes. Gurnee is about 20 miles and 28 minutes. Downtown Chicago is about 59 miles and 78 minutes. O'Hare is about 54 miles, and the router gave about 88 minutes. Downtown Milwaukee is about 45 miles and 58 minutes, and downtown Kenosha about 18 miles and 32 minutes.

The west side of the village adds time to Illinois destinations. From Silver Lake, Vernon Hills runs about 32 miles and 51 minutes; from Wilmot, about 29 miles and 47 minutes; and from Camp Lake, about 27 miles and 47 minutes. Wilmot is closer to Fox Lake, Illinois (about 10 miles and 16 minutes) than to Antioch.

For a Lake County, Illinois buyer, the practical point is that the east side of Salem Lakes is closer to Vernon Hills than much of McHenry County and much of northern Lake County's lake country. A part-week drive to Lake County works well from here. A five-day downtown Chicago drive is a different conversation, and rush hour on Route 83 and Route 45 adds real time to these estimates.

Salem Lakes has no train station of its own, but three Metra terminals are within reach, and one is just over the state line. I counted trains in Metra's GTFS schedule data for the week of October 12, 2026 and used the same free-flow router for the drives.

Antioch, Illinois, the end of the North Central Service line, is the closest: about 4 miles and 7 minutes from Village Hall. On a weekday it has 7 trains toward Chicago Union Station and 7 back, with rides of 92 to 103 minutes, and no weekend service. That schedule suits a fixed office schedule and little else.

Fox Lake, Illinois, the end of the Milwaukee District North line, has far more service. It is about 13 miles and 23 minutes from Village Hall and about 10 miles and 16 minutes from Wilmot. On a weekday it has 16 trains to Union Station and 16 back, with morning rides of 88 to 93 minutes, and 9 trains each way on Saturdays and Sundays.

Kenosha, on the Union Pacific North line, is about 18 miles and 32 minutes from Village Hall. It has 10 weekday inbound trains with rides of about 92 minutes to Ogilvie, plus 8 trains each way on weekends. Kenosha County's LINK service also offers door-to-door rides west of I-94, including Salem Lakes, per the village's transportation page.

Put plainly, a Salem Lakes to Loop commute by train is about two hours door to door on a good morning. The Antioch station makes the east side workable for some schedules, and the Fox Lake line gives the most flexibility.

Salem Lakes has a lot of public and private open land. The 2023-2027 recreation plan counts 1,528.84 acres of parks, open space and special-use areas: 335.66 acres owned by the village, 401.88 by Kenosha County, 215.18 by the DNR, 69.79 by school districts and 506.33 in private hands.

The village parks start with Community Park, 88.14 acres near the center of the village with an active side to the north and a passive side to the south. Old Oaks Park off Dells Road is 29.97 acres and mostly wooded. Camp Lake Park on 270th Avenue is 8.52 acres, and the smaller parks include Salem Oaks (3.61 acres), Wilson Runyard (2.97 acres) and Schmalfeldt (2.56 acres) in Silver Lake. The village rents shelters at several of them.

Kenosha County runs the two big parks. The plan describes Silver Lake Park at 259 acres, including part of the Silver Lake Wetlands natural area, and Fox River Park at 147 acres, with a recommended kayak and canoe launch on the river. The Fox River Water Trail and a disc golf course are listed on the village's parks page. Off-street paved paths include one along Rock Lake Road to the state line and others in the Falcon Heights and Hawk's Run subdivisions.

Wilmot Mountain needs a precise answer, because it is often described as being in Salem Lakes. The recreation plan says the resort's 127.61 acres in the village are mainly woodland, wetland and Fox River floodplain plus some parking and maintenance buildings, and that "the bulk of the resort including the ski hill" is in the Town of Randall. The Census geocoder puts the hill itself in Randall. Wikipedia dates the resort to 1938 and says Vail Resorts bought it in early 2016 and put more than $13 million into renovations, with about 200 feet of vertical and 23 trails. So it is a Wilmot address with a Randall ski hill, a few minutes from most of the village.

Golf and the fairgrounds round it out. Spring Valley Country Club is an 18-hole public course of 134.71 acres in the southeast part of the village, per the plan, and the Kenosha County Fairgrounds and Wilmot Raceway are in Wilmot.

The biggest policy project in Salem Lakes right now is its zoning update. The village's announcements page says it held a community open house and survey with the consultants von Briesen and RINKA as part of the update and has posted the results. For a buyer, a rewritten zoning code can change what you can build on a lot, how close to the water, and what can be built next door, so I'd watch it before buying land.

The infrastructure work is visible. The 2026 Street and Utilities Improvement Project was in its restoration phase on North Street and 103rd Place the week of October 5, 2026. Kenosha County's Highway W resurfacing moved into downtown Wilmot in September 2026, with Highway W closed between 113th and 114th streets. And the village is rehabilitating sanitary sewers in the Valmar and Yaws subdivisions during 2026, following the 2018 sewer master plan for the Salem and Silver Lake plants.

Growth is coming from the east. The village publishes a street and boundary map showing a Paddock Lake growth area, and the DOR's 2025 report lists one tax incremental district in Salem Lakes, with about $36.9 million of value above its base. The recreation plan notes the village (counted as the town and Silver Lake together) grew by 5,654 people, or 63%, from 1990 to 2020.

For a buyer, I read that as a village still filling in, mostly along the Highway 50 and 83 corridors, with the lake neighborhoods largely built out. The lake streets change slowly; the open land between them is where new subdivisions and commercial projects would go.

Police service in Salem Lakes comes from the Kenosha County Sheriff's Office; the village does not appear with a police department of its own in the FBI's agency list, and village pages route matters such as golf cart inspections to the Sheriff's dispatch. Fire and ambulance service come from Salem Lakes Fire/Rescue. I don't characterize the safety of any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can contact the Kenosha County Sheriff's Office or look up its reported figures on the FBI Crime Data Explorer.