Town of Randall, WI

Randall was carved out of its neighbor to the north. The town's own history page says Randall was formed when Kenosha County was split off from a much larger Racine County in 1850, and that its boundaries were set by cutting the Town of Wheatland in half. The town took its name from Alexander Randall, the sitting governor. The town hall on Bassett Road dates to 1938 and cost $5,500, plus another $150 for the land.

Bassett, the crossroads where that town hall sits, grew up as a railroad stop. Wikipedia's Bassett entry says the community was first known as Bassett's Station, that the Kenosha and Rockford Railroad ran through it, and that the line was abandoned in May 1939. Today Bassett is a cluster of houses, the town hall and a fire station rather than a business district.

The lake side has its own timeline. The District of Powers Lake dates the recreational era on Powers Lake to the 1880s and 1890s, when the north shore was built up for recreation and ice companies cut ice on the south shore of Powers Lake and the north shore of Benedict Lake. The Village of Twin Lakes incorporated in 1937, and Randall now surrounds it on nearly every side. The full Powers Lake story is in my Powers Lake guide.

Randall sits in the southwest corner of Kenosha County, with Illinois to the south, Walworth County to the west and the Town of Wheatland to the north. The Census Bureau's 2024 gazetteer gives the town 13.061 square miles of land and 0.655 square miles of water. The Department of Revenue counted 3,325 people for 2025, up from 3,285 in the 2020 census.

The shape is unusual. The Village of Twin Lakes sits in the middle, and the town wraps around it. When I mapped the OpenStreetMap town and village boundaries on October 5, 2026, the town came out as two pieces, west and east of the village. Lake Elizabeth and Lake Mary, the two big lakes people picture when they hear "Twin Lakes," fall inside the village, not the town.

What Randall does hold is most of Powers Lake and most of Lake Benedict on its west side. My boundary overlay put about 83% of Powers Lake's surface and 73% of Lake Benedict's inside the town; the rest is in Walworth County's Village of Bloomfield.

Mailing addresses don't follow the town line. Listings I opened on October 5, 2026 labeled Randall houses with Burlington 53105, Genoa City 53128, Twin Lakes 53181 and Wilmot 53192 addresses, and the town hall itself uses Burlington. When I look at a listing labeled Randall, the tax bill is what tells me it is the town and not the village, and that drives the rate, the school district and who handles zoning.

I split Randall into four kinds of places when I talk about it, because price, lot size and utilities change between them.

The Powers Lake side is the west end of the town. The Census Bureau's Powers Lake place, which spans Randall and a slice of Wheatland, had 1,401 people in 2020 and, in the 2020-2024 American Community Survey, 971 homes, about 290 of them held for seasonal use. This is where Randall's lakefront and lake-access houses sit, along with town parks and launches, and it is covered street by street in my Powers Lake guide.

The Lake Benedict shore lies just south of Powers Lake on the Walworth County line. The DNR lists it at 76 acres, about a sixth the size of Powers Lake, and it has its own management district.

Bassett is the town's civic crossroads east of Twin Lakes, with the town hall, Fire Station 2 and Bassett Park. Homes around it are mostly on larger rural lots.

The subdivisions and acreage fill in the rest. Two listings I opened on October 5, 2026 placed houses in Randall Farms, a subdivision of roughly one-acre lots on the west side, one of them a 2025 build. Elsewhere the town is farm fields, wooded parcels and houses on one to several acres. The fire and EMS study the town published in May 2026 describes the same mix: agricultural land, large residential parcels and established waterfront neighborhoods around Powers Lake and Lake Benedict.

Randall is almost entirely detached houses. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 1,673 housing units in the town (plus or minus 213), and every one of them in the estimate is a detached single-unit house. Of 1,411 occupied homes, 1,346, about 95%, are owner-occupied. About 244 homes (plus or minus 119) are held for seasonal or recreational use, which is the Powers Lake effect showing up in the numbers.

The age profile is newer than most lake towns. The median Randall home was built in 1982. The biggest single decade is the 1980s, with about 453 homes, then the 1970s with 243 and the 1950s with 214. About 135 homes date to before 1940, many of them original lake cottages, and roughly 276 were built since 2000.

The ACS puts the median owner value at $348,400 (plus or minus $41,025), well above Kenosha County's $265,500. The survey also estimates about 48 owner-occupied homes valued at $1.5 million or more, though the margins on that count are as large as the count itself. Most occupied homes heat with utility gas (1,153 of 1,411).

The Department of Revenue's 2025 equalized values show how residential the tax base is: $870.5 million of the town's $925.4 million in real estate is residential, about 94%. Land makes up about 40% of that residential value, a high share that reflects what lake frontage and large lots are worth.

Each type of house has its own inspection list. On an older lake cottage I look at the foundation, how and when it was winterized and how many additions it has had. On a 1980s house it is the roof, windows and mechanicals. Out in the countryside, the age of the well and septic often matters more than the age of the house.

Two lakes make Randall a lake town. The Wisconsin DNR lists Powers Lake at 451 acres with a maximum depth of 33 feet and two public boat landings. The District of Powers Lake gives 459 acres, 1.3 miles long, 5.3 miles of shoreline and a mean depth of 16 feet, and lists its "lake distribution" as 75% Randall, 16% Wheatland and 9% Bloomfield. The DNR's Benedict Lake page gives 76 acres and a maximum depth of 37 feet, shared with Walworth County.

The town runs a lot of the lake's daily business. The District of Powers Lake's site sends questions about launch fees, pier rentals, buoys and water patrol to the Town of Randall. The town's pier page lists a $10 daily launch fee, a $60 annual resident pass and an $80 annual nonresident pass, and leases town boat slips and shore racks from wait lists. In July 2026 the town switched daily launch payments to credit-card-only kiosks at the landings. The town directory lists a Water Patrol chief.

The District of Powers Lake itself was founded in 1985 and has five elected and two appointed commissioners, one from Kenosha County and one from the Town of Randall. Lake Benedict has the Benedict-Tombeau Management District, whose officers the town also lists.

I keep this section short on purpose. Boating hours, ski rules, lake levels and the lakefront market are in my Powers Lake guide, and Lake Elizabeth and Lake Mary are in my Twin Lakes guide.

Randall is where Kenosha County's top lake prices show up, and the top is thin. On October 5, 2026, the highest Randall listing I could find was a Powers Lake house on 391st Court, listed at $4,900,000: five bedrooms and five baths on 1.87 acres, built in 1989, with about 114 feet of shoreline, a pool and a private pier per the listing. Its listed annual tax was $26,120, about 0.53% of the asking price, which tells you how far assessments have lagged the market (more on that in the tax section).

Sales at that level are rare. Redfin's public data for the Powers Lake Census place, which covers Randall's lake side, shows one sale in February 2026 at $2,380,000 and a two-sale April 2026 month with a median of $1,840,000. In the 12 months through May 2026 it counted 21 sales in all, and most months sat between about $290,000 and $630,000.

Off the lake, Randall's upper tier is new and newer construction on acreage. On the same date, a five-bedroom house of about 6,080 square feet built in 2025 in Randall Farms was listed at $1,099,000 on 0.93 acres, and a 2006 five-bedroom house on 1.2 acres in the same subdivision was pending at $850,000.

I separate three tiers on any lake. Lakefront means your own frontage and pier rights. Lake access means a deeded or association right to reach the water. Off-lake means you drive to a public launch. On Powers Lake the three can sit within a block of each other at very different prices, and listing language blurs them. I read the deed, the plat and any access easement before I trust the word "lake" in a Randall listing.

Zillow's home value index publishes a Randall series. In August 2026 the typical Randall home was worth $479,620, up 5.5% from a year earlier and 12.0% over two years. For comparison, Zillow's August 2026 figures were $439,752 for the Powers Lake place, $412,998 for the Village of Twin Lakes, $337,519 for Kenosha County as a whole and $399,526 for Lake County, Illinois.

That puts Randall above Lake County's typical home, which surprises some of the Lake County buyers I talk to who assume Wisconsin is automatically cheaper. Zillow's index covers all homes, though, and six of the eight Randall houses listed on October 5, 2026 sat on more than an acre, so the comparison that matters is lot for lot.

The listing mix on October 5, 2026 shows the spread. Movoto's Randall page had eight Randall houses active or pending: a 1958 three-bedroom on about 1.1 acres on 87th Street at $399,900, a 1963 house on 125th Street at $399,000, a 2020 three-bedroom on 371st Avenue pending at $599,900, a 1979 four-bedroom on 2 acres on 87th Street pending at $614,900, a 1994 four-bedroom on 400th Avenue at $635,000, and the three upper-tier listings in the lakefront section.

Redfin doesn't publish a Town of Randall series, and its Powers Lake series is small: 21 sales in the 12 months through May 2026, down from 26 the year before. With two or three sales a month, a single lakefront closing moves a monthly median by a million dollars, so I price a Randall house from its own comparable sales: lakefront against lakefront, acreage against acreage. If you're running numbers, my guide to how much house you can afford in 2026 is a good place to start.

Wisconsin taxes run on assessed value times a mill rate, and in Randall the assessed value is the part to watch right now.

The Department of Revenue's 2025 report puts Randall's assessment level at 0.73: on average, assessments sat at about 73% of market value. The DOR's major class comparison shows residential property assessed at 72.7% of the state's value in 2025, down from 100.5% in 2021, and records a first notice of non-compliance. The town responded. A revaluation notice dated April 24, 2026 says every assessment is being revalued for 2026, with notices expected in June, and the open book and Board of Review notice set open book from June 29 and the Board of Review for July 29, 2026.

What that means: the tax figure on a Randall listing today is usually a 2025 bill on a lagging assessment. A revaluation doesn't raise the town's total levy by itself; it resets assessments so the levy is shared by current market value. Properties whose assessments lagged most can see the largest change on the December 2026 bill.

The rate itself depends on the school district. Kenosha County's own rate sheet sits behind a site block I couldn't get past, so I worked from the DOR's apportioned levies. At full market value, my arithmetic puts the 2025 net rate at about $10.95 per $1,000 for Randall J1 parcels, $10.82 for Trevor-Wilmot and $10.46 for Wheatland J1, all with Wilmot Union High School. The DOR's town-wide figures are 1.275% gross and 1.098% effective after the school levy credit. Divided by the 0.73 assessment level, the Randall J1 rate is about $15.00 per $1,000 of 2025 assessed value.

A worked example. A $480,000 primary residence, near Zillow's typical value, assessed at the 2025 level would carry about $350,400 of assessed value and a 2025 net bill of about $5,257. The lottery and gaming credit, a $27,000 credit value times the school tax rate, comes to roughly $307 by my estimate, for a net near $4,950, or about 1.03% of value. A second home gets no lottery credit. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value. This is general information, not tax advice; your bill depends on the parcel, its school district, your credits and the 2026 assessment.

Plan on a private well and septic system for almost any Randall house. The town's May 2026 fire and EMS study says the town has no public fire protection water system, and the town code's only sewer chapter, Chapter 21, covers connections to a Salem utility district for a commercial property near Gander Mountain. If a listing claims sewer, confirm which district serves it and what the user charges are.

On a well-and-septic purchase, I'd write a well water test and a septic inspection into the inspection period and ask the seller for the septic permit, pumping records and any replacement history. Lakefront lots add one more question: how close the system sits to the water and whether it meets current code.

No public water also affects insurance. The same study gives Randall an ISO fire protection class of 9, tied to the lack of a public fire protection water system, and notes the department's tanker capacity could support a move to Class 8. Fire insurance premiums use that class, so I'd get a homeowner's insurance quote early on a Randall house, especially one far from a fire station.

Fire service comes from the Randall Volunteer Fire Department, with Station 1 at 38820 93rd Street near Powers Lake and Station 2 at 9575 336th Avenue in Bassett. The study says Randall, Wheatland and Twin Lakes all contract with Twin Lakes Volunteer Fire and Rescue for ambulance service.

Randall follows the Wisconsin pattern of K-8 districts feeding a union high school, and three K-8 districts tax parts of the town. The DOR's 2025 apportionment puts about $871.6 million of Randall's value in Randall J1, about $45.9 million in Trevor-Wilmot Consolidated and about $7.9 million in Wheatland J1. All of it is in the Wilmot Union High School district.

Most Randall addresses go to Randall Consolidated School, a K4-8 school at 37101 87th Street per the federal school directory. The school also serves the Village of Twin Lakes, which makes up about 39% of the Randall J1 tax base.

The Trevor-Wilmot slice, on the town's east side, goes to Trevor-Wilmot Grade School in Trevor." The small Wheatland J1 slice goes to Wheatland Center Elementary.

High school is Wilmot High School at 11112 308th Avenue in Wilmot.

Assignment follows the parcel. The difference between districts also shows up on the tax bill, so I confirm the district on the tax bill and with the district office before an offer.

Randall has no highway interchange of its own. Highway 50 runs just north of the town line toward Lake Geneva and Kenosha, U.S. 12 is a short drive west in Walworth County, and county highways carry traffic south into Illinois toward Antioch and Richmond.

I ran free-flow routes on the OSRM routing engine, which uses OpenStreetMap roads and no traffic, on October 5, 2026, from two starting points. Treat these as best-case estimates.

From Bassett, Vernon Hills is about 32 road miles and 53 minutes. Downtown Chicago is about 66 miles and 93 minutes. O'Hare is about 53 miles, and the router gave 98 minutes, which looks long against the Loop time. Downtown Milwaukee is about 51 miles and 68 minutes. Lake Geneva is about 14 miles and 24 minutes, and Burlington, Wisconsin is about 11 miles and 21 minutes.

From the Powers Lake side, Vernon Hills is about 36 miles and 55 minutes, downtown Chicago about 69 miles and 99 minutes, and downtown Milwaukee about 56 miles and 77 minutes. Lake Geneva is closer, about 10 miles and 20 minutes.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the comparison buyers usually make is Randall against Antioch or the Chain O'Lakes, a few miles south. The drive is similar. What changes is the tax structure, the lake rules and the price of acreage. Two summer traffic events are worth knowing about. The fire study describes the Country Thunder Wisconsin music festival, held in the town each July and drawing tens of thousands of people a day, and Wilmot Mountain's ski and tubing season, which it says draws more than 100,000 visits a year.

Randall has no rail service. The practical options are three Metra stations, and I counted trains in Metra's GTFS schedule data for the weekday and weekend service in effect through October 4, 2026.

Antioch, on the North Central Service line, is the closest: about 12 road miles and 23 minutes from Bassett by the same free-flow router. It has 7 weekday trains each way, with morning rides to Union Station of 92 to 103 minutes, and no weekend service.

Fox Lake, the end of the Milwaukee District North line, is about 12 miles and 23 minutes from Bassett and about 16 miles and 25 minutes from the Powers Lake side. It has 16 weekday trains to Union Station and 16 back, with morning rides of 88 to 102 minutes, and 9 each way on Saturdays and Sundays.

Kenosha, at the north end of the Union Pacific North line, is about 24 miles and 41 minutes from Bassett. It has 10 weekday trains to Ogilvie and 9 back, with rides of 92 to 102 minutes, and 8 each way on weekends.

Door to door, a Randall to Loop train commute runs more than two hours. For five days a week, most people I talk to would drive to Fox Lake and treat Antioch as the weekday-only option.

Randall's amenities are outdoors. The town runs the public launches on Powers Lake, and an OpenStreetMap extract I pulled on October 5, 2026 places Powers Lake Park, Lakeside Park and Bayview Park on the Randall side of the lake, Bassett Park and Rullman Park farther east, and the Warren Close Bark Park, a dog park the town's own links page lists.

Kenosha County Veterans Memorial Park sits on the line between Randall and Wheatland, with a boat ramp on Freedom Lake. Nippersink Resort's golf course lies between Powers Lake and Lake Benedict on the Randall side of the county line, and Twin Lakes Country Club is just inside the village.

Winter has its own draw. The town's May 2026 fire and EMS study places Wilmot Mountain Ski and Tubing Resort in the Town of Randall and puts attendance above 100,000 visits a year, depending on the winter.

Day-to-day errands run to the Village of Twin Lakes, which the same OpenStreetMap extract shows with a supermarket, restaurants and village parks and beaches, and to Antioch across the state line. For bigger shopping, Lake Geneva is about 24 minutes from Bassett by the free-flow router and Kenosha about 41.

Three things are moving in Randall in 2026, and none of them is a big commercial project.

The first is the revaluation covered in the tax section. When 2026 assessments land on the December 2026 bills, the tax line on Randall listings will finally reflect current values, and comparing two houses' taxes will mean something again.

The second is fire and EMS. The Public Administration Associates study, dated May 11, 2026 and funded by a state Innovation Planning grant, recommends that Randall, Wheatland and Twin Lakes move to a consolidated joint fire and EMS department run under an intergovernmental agreement and a joint fire commission, with two stations and a partly career staff. The Town of Wheatland's site records a May 12, 2026 meeting at Randall School to review it. A joint department would change who answers calls and how it is funded; nothing in the study is adopted yet.

The third is steady new construction on acreage. The 2025 build in Randall Farms listed at $1,099,000 is one example. The same study describes Randall's commercial and industrial base as small and says it does not expect large-scale commercial or industrial growth. The town has adopted a solar energy systems ordinance, Chapter 31 of its code, which sets the local rules for solar installations.

If road plans, a neighbor's land division or a solar installation matter for a parcel you're considering, the town's Plan Commission, which meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month per its commissions page, is where those come up.

The Town of Randall doesn't list a police department of its own. Its 2026 fire and EMS study notes that the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department uses space at the town's Station 2, and the town runs a joint municipal court with the Village of Twin Lakes. Fire service comes from the Randall Volunteer Fire Department. I don't characterize any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can ask the Sheriff's Department or look up any agency on the FBI's Crime Data Explorer.

Powers Lake gives you the deepest lakefront market in Kenosha County, Lake Benedict a smaller one, and the subdivisions and countryside give you new construction and acreage at prices below comparable Lake County lake and estate towns.

The trade-offs are specific. Taxes on today's listings sit on 2025 assessments at about 73% of value, and the 2026 revaluation will reset them. There is no public water or sewer for most houses, and the ISO fire class is 9. Fire and EMS are volunteer-based and under review. Errands mean Twin Lakes or Antioch, and summer festival weekends bring traffic.

The one thing I would never skip here is pulling the tax bill and the 2026 assessment notice for the exact parcel: town or village, school district, lake district and assessed value, before anyone falls for a view.