Walworth, WI

The prairie Walworth sits on carries an older name. Geneva Lake was once called Big Foot Lake, per Wikipedia's history of Big Foot High School, and the name survives in the high school, the recreation district, Big Foot Beach State Park in Lake Geneva and Big Foot Prairie, a tiny crossroads that straddles the Illinois line south of the village.

The town came first. The Town of Walworth's own site dates its founding to 1839, and Wikipedia,_Wisconsin) records that the first town meeting, on April 4, 1843, was held in a schoolhouse on Big Foot Prairie for a town then called Fontana, later renamed Walworth.

The village grew slowly. The Walworth County Historical Society says Carlos L. Douglass platted it and that it grew until the business slowdown of 1857, then stayed little more than a hamlet until an electric railway was built from Harvard, Illinois, in 1899. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul line from Chicago to Janesville followed in 1901, the year Walworth incorporated as a village. The same history notes gasoline street lights from 1905 and a water works that began service in 1911.

The railroad mattered for most of the next century. According to Wikipedia, Milwaukee Road commuter trains to Chicago once ended in Walworth, and the service was cut back to Fox Lake, Illinois, in 1982 when Metra took over the route. The old platform and turnaround track are still there, unused. In 1972 Kikkoman opened its first United States plant on the edge of the village, and it is still the area's best-known employer.

"Walworth" on a listing can mean two different governments, and the difference shows up on the tax bill. The Village of Walworth is the incorporated village around the square. The Census Bureau's 2024 gazetteer puts it at 1.72 square miles of land, and the 2020 census counted 2,759 people, down slightly from 2,816 in 2010, per Wikipedia. It has its own police department, fire and rescue department, public works, water and sewer utility, library and municipal court, per the village website.

The Town of Walworth is the rural township around it. The Census county subdivision gazetteer counts 28.1 square miles of land and 1.9 square miles of water. The town's site describes it as mostly agricultural land with homes scattered through it, bordering Illinois and the villages of Walworth, Fontana and Williams Bay. It counted 1,565 people in 2020, per Wikipedia,_Wisconsin). In the town, Walworth County handles zoning, the Walworth County Sheriff patrols, and the town's own site lists Fontana Fire and Rescue as its fire and EMS provider.

The mailing address doesn't settle which one a house is in. The village and much of the town share the 53184 ZIP code. When a buyer from Lake County, Illinois sends me a Walworth listing, the first thing I check is the municipality on the tax bill, because it decides the tax rate, the school district, who plows the road, and whether the house is on a well.

The honest answer to "Is Walworth on the lake?" is no. The village has no lake frontage; the Census gazetteer records zero water area inside it. What it has is proximity. A routing estimate from OSRM puts the center of Fontana-on-Geneva Lake about 2.5 road miles from the center of Walworth, roughly five minutes without traffic, and Williams Bay about 5.5 road miles.

Geneva Lake itself is a 5,401-acre lake with a maximum depth of 135 feet, according to the Wisconsin DNR, which lists six boat landings and six beaches. The west end of the lake is Fontana's. The Census geocoder places a slice of the lake's west-end water inside the Town of Walworth, but every shoreline point I checked at that end belongs to the Village of Fontana or the Village of Williams Bay. My Fontana guide and Williams Bay guide cover that market.

What a Walworth owner does get is unusually good access. The Village of Fontana's beach page, updated in May 2026, sells season beach passes to residents of the Big Foot High School district for $85, against $140 for other nonresidents. The village of Walworth and most of the town are in that district. Fontana also posts daily admission rates and runs a public launch on Lake Avenue that is open 24 hours, with 2026 launch fees posted by boat length.

This is the trade most buyers looking at Walworth are making. Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the buyers I talk to who look north at Geneva Lake usually ask first whether they can afford frontage. When the answer is no, a village or town home five minutes from Fontana's beach and launch is the next question. You get most of the lake's summer for a lot less money, as long as you're clear that the boat goes on a trailer or in a rented slip.

Walworth sorts into four kinds of property, and the first question I'd ask is which one you want, because the tax rate, the utilities and even the school district change with the answer.

The first is the village core around the square. Heyer Park, at 100 Park Avenue, is the square itself, per the village parks page. The streets running off Kenosha Street (WIS 67) and Main Street (US 14) hold the oldest homes in the village, on sidewalks and city water and sewer. The Census estimates about 173 village homes were built before 1940.

The second is the newer housing on the village edges. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts about 399 village homes built in the 1990s and 2000s, more than a third of the housing stock, plus a meaningful number of townhouses and small apartment buildings. Subdivision names show up on listing sites; Windmill Meadows is one that a neighborhood site profiles. I'd confirm subdivision boundaries against the MLS before relying on any of them.

The third is the Town of Walworth's acreage: farmhouses, outbuildings and newer country homes on private wells and septic across 28 square miles. The town's Census sample shows about 201 homes built in the 2000s, the largest single decade.

The fourth is the lake-side edge of the town toward Fontana and Williams Bay. These parcels are still in the town, but the county zoning page says Fontana and Williams Bay have extraterritorial zoning over some unincorporated land, which means that village controls zoning there. The school district can also flip to Fontana J8 or Williams Bay on this side, which changes the tax rate a lot.

The village has more variety than most small Wisconsin villages. The 2020-2024 ACS counts about 1,107 housing units in the Village of Walworth. About 635 (57%) are detached single-family homes, about 72 are attached townhouses, about 120 are in two- to four-unit buildings and about 167 are in buildings of five to nine units. About 55% of occupied homes are owner-occupied (572 of 1,047). The median home was built in 1983.

The age mix is broad. About 173 homes date from before 1940, about 196 from the 1950s and 1960s, 265 from the 1970s and 1980s, and about 399 from the 1990s and 2000s. Only about 57 are from 2010 or later. The ACS median value of an owner-occupied village home is $290,600 (plus or minus $24,241), and the median gross rent is $968.

The town is almost all houses. The ACS for the Town of Walworth counts about 751 housing units, about 712 (95%) of them detached, with about 78% owner-occupied. The median town home was built in 1979, and the median value is $332,000, with a wide margin of plus or minus $66,967. About 252 of 694 occupied town homes heat with propane, against about 9 in the village, which tells you where the gas mains stop.

Margins at this size are wide, so read these as the shape of the market rather than exact counts. The ACS value figures are five-year averages of owner estimates, so they trail today's prices.

Walworth is a small market, so I use an index and a sales count rather than one month's median. Zillow's home value index for Walworth was $406,809 in August 2026, up 3.8% from $392,045 a year earlier and 7.1% over two years. For comparison, the index was $411,444 for Walworth County as a whole (up 4.4%), $680,700 for Fontana and $549,741 for Williams Bay. Zillow's index for Lake County, Illinois was $399,526 in the same month, so a typical Walworth home costs about what a typical Lake County home does.

Sales are thin. Redfin's public data counts 50 residential sales in Walworth from June 2025 through May 2026, never more than nine in a month. Monthly medians bounced between $253,450 and $455,750 in that stretch, which is what happens when two or three sales set the number. In May 2026 Redfin showed 16 homes for sale and a median of 52 days on market, with sellers getting about 101% of list on average that month.

The two sources tell the same story in different words. Zillow's index estimates all homes, Redfin's medians describe whatever happened to sell that month. When they disagree, I trust the index for direction and comparable sales for price.

If you're weighing whether to buy now, my take on whether 2026 is a good time to buy covers rates and inventory.

No, and it isn't trying to be. The Geneva Lake luxury market is real, and it is next door. In March 2026, BizTimes reported a $14.3 million sale of a 10,960-square-foot home on 2.4 acres in Fontana. That is the market the west end of the lake plays in. Walworth does not.

The data says so plainly. Zillow's upper-tier index, which tracks the top third of homes, was $625,730 for Walworth in August 2026, against $1,188,441 for Fontana and $887,494 for Williams Bay. The 2020-2024 ACS estimates only about 11 owner-occupied village homes valued at $1 million or more, and about 13 in the town, each with margins as large as the counts.

So what does Walworth offer instead? Two things. One is lake access for summer weekends from a house that is easy to own, with a beach pass and a trailer instead of a pier. The other is land: a country home on 5, 10 or 35 acres in the Town of Walworth, close to the lake towns.

Wisconsin property tax works differently from Illinois, and it is the first thing the Lake County, Illinois buyers I work with compare. The bill is a mill rate, dollars per $1,000 of assessed value, minus state credits. The Walworth County Treasurer's 2025 mill rate sheet, used for the bills mailed in December 2025, lists each taxing body for the Village of Walworth: county 2.37 mills, village 6.04, Big Foot union high school 1.74, Walworth J1 6.02 and Gateway Technical College 0.57. That is 16.73 mills gross. The state school levy tax credit takes off 1.44 mills, for a net of about 15.29 mills per $1,000 of assessed value. That arithmetic is mine.

Assessed value is not market value. The Wisconsin DOR's 2025 Town, Village and City Taxes report puts the village's assessment level at 93% of market, and its effective full-value rate at 1.416% after the school levy credit. The DOR's 2026 Guide for Property Owners explains that each municipality has to be assessed within 10% of market value at least once every five years.

The town is cheaper. The same DOR report puts the Town of Walworth's effective rate at 0.96%, with an assessment level of 83%. The town's rate depends on the school district, which the county sheet shows splitting six ways. By my arithmetic on the 2025 sheet, a Walworth J1 and Big Foot parcel in the town nets about 13.74 mills on assessed value, a Fontana J8 and Big Foot parcel about 8.88, and a Williams Bay parcel about 10.41.

A worked example, before credits that depend on the owner: a $400,000 home at the village's 1.416% effective rate is about $5,664 a year, roughly $472 a month. The same price at the town's average 0.96% is about $3,840. Ownwell's April 2026 data puts the median Walworth bill at $4,208. For comparison, Ownwell puts Lake County, Illinois at a 2.61% median effective rate, about $10,440 on the same $400,000.

Two credits come off a Wisconsin bill. The lottery and gaming credit applies only to a primary residence; Wis. Stat. 79.10 defines that as the owner's primary residence on January 1, and the DOR's 2025 notice set the maximum credit value at $27,000 of assessed value. A weekend house won't get it. The first dollar credit applies to any parcel with improvements, on up to $9,000 of value. Bills can be paid in two installments, January 31 and July 31.

At closing, the seller normally pays Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee: $0.30 per $100 of value, or $1,200 on a $400,000 sale. This is general information, not tax advice; your bill depends on your parcel, your school district, your assessment and whether the home is your primary residence.

Inside the village, plan on municipal water and sewer. The village runs its own utility, with a water and sewer application and annual water quality reports on the village website, and the county historical society dates the water works to 1911. The ACS shows about 806 of 1,047 occupied village homes on utility gas.

In the Town of Walworth, assume a private well and a septic system unless the listing shows otherwise. Wisconsin calls a septic system a POWTS, a private onsite wastewater treatment system. The county's Shoreland Zoning Guide says a new POWTS needs a sanitary permit from the county, generally with the bottom of the absorption system more than 3 feet above saturated soil and at least 50 feet from a well or the lake. The Wisconsin DNR regulates wells. The 2025 county mill rate sheet also shows the Linn Sanitary District and the Delavan Lake Sanitary District levying in parts of the town, so a few town parcels are in a sanitary district.

Heat follows the same split. About 252 of 694 occupied town homes heat with propane in the ACS. On a propane house, ask whether the tank is owned or leased and what last year's fills cost.

On a town house, I'd put a well water test and a septic inspection into the offer, and pull the county's sanitary permit file. My home inspection checklist covers what to ask for.

Acreage buyers need to know who controls zoning before they fall for a parcel. The Walworth County zoning page says the county's general zoning code applies to all unincorporated land in the county except the Town of Bloomfield, so it covers the Town of Walworth. Fontana and Williams Bay have extraterritorial zoning over some unincorporated land, and inside those areas the county does not have zoning jurisdiction.

The county's zoning districts summary sets the numbers that matter. A-1 prime agricultural land requires a 35-acre farm size. A-2 agricultural land, meant for small farms and horse and hobby farms, requires 20 acres. A-5 agricultural-rural residential allows a homesite of 40,000 square feet with 150 feet of width. R-1 unsewered single-family lots need 40,000 square feet and 150 feet of width, and C-2 upland conservancy requires 5 acres. A farmhouse on 12 acres zoned A-1 can be a legal nonconforming situation, and splitting off a lot can need a rezoning, so read the zoning before the price.

Shoreland rules apply near water. The county's shoreland code covers unincorporated land within 1,000 feet of a lake, pond or flowage, or 300 feet of a river or stream, matching the state standard in NR 115. The county's shoreland guide sets a 75-foot shore yard, a 35-foot no-touch buffer except for a view corridor, and impervious surface limits within 300 feet of the water. Piers are regulated by the DNR. Inside the village, the village's own building, zoning and plan commission handles permits.

The Town of Walworth also licenses short-term rentals under Ordinance No. 01182022-2 from 2022, and the village has its own tourist rooming house ordinance and room tax. If you plan to rent a Walworth house by the week, that is a license to get before closing, not after.

Most Walworth homes go to two schools. Walworth Elementary, at 121 Beloit Street, is the only school in Walworth Joint School District No. 1 and runs 4K through 8th grade, with 409 students in the 2024-25 federal school directory. Lake Geneva Regional News reported in April 2024 that the district was founded in 1853, that its building dates to 1902 with additions in 1953, 1967, 1998 and 2003, and that voters approved a four-year, $990,000-a-year operating referendum 603 to 492 that April.

Big Foot High School, at 401 Devils Lane, is a union high school district serving grades 9 to 12, with 437 students in 2024-25. Wikipedia says it opened in 1959 and draws from the K-8 districts of Walworth, Fontana, Sharon and Linn J6.

The Town of Walworth is the complicated part. The DOR's 2025 school district data splits the town's taxable value among six districts: about half in Walworth J1, about 36% in Fontana J8, about 14% in Williams Bay, and small pieces in Linn J6 and Delavan-Darien, with about 86% inside the Big Foot high school district. A town address near Fontana can be in Fontana J8 and a Williams Bay-side parcel in the K-12 Williams Bay district. Assignment follows the parcel, so confirm every address with the district.

The trains that once ended in Walworth now end in Illinois, and the closest one is easy to reach. I counted trains in Metra's published schedule data for the week of October 5, 2026.

Harvard, the end of the Union Pacific Northwest line, is about 8.3 road miles from the Walworth square, roughly 14 minutes by an OSRM routing estimate. It has 14 weekday trains toward Chicago and 13 back. The four early trains, at 5:30, 6:00, 6:30 and 7:00 a.m., each take 92 minutes to Ogilvie. Evening trips home run 92 to 113 minutes. There are 10 inbound trains on Saturday and 7 on Sunday. Because Harvard is the first stop, there is always a seat.

Fox Lake, the end of the Milwaukee District North line, is about 29 road miles away, with 16 weekday trains to Union Station and fastest trips of 88 to 89 minutes. For a train into Chicago, Harvard is the closer choice.

Amtrak's Hiawatha runs seven round trips a day (six on Sunday) between Chicago and Milwaukee in about 1 hour 29 minutes, with stops at Milwaukee Airport and Sturtevant, but both are a long drive east of Walworth.

Door to door, downtown Chicago from Walworth is close to two hours by car and train on a good morning.

Two highways cross at the square. US 14, Main Street, runs south to Harvard and north toward Darien and Janesville. WIS 67, Kenosha Street and South Main, runs northeast toward Williams Bay and Elkhorn. There is no interstate in town.

Here are routing estimates from OSRM, a free routing engine, from the village center. They assume no traffic, so treat them as best case. Vernon Hills is about 47.6 road miles and 70 minutes. O'Hare is about 67 road miles and 109 minutes. The Chicago Loop is about 82 road miles and just under two hours. Downtown Milwaukee is about 58 road miles and 73 minutes, and Milwaukee's airport about 54 miles and 69 minutes. Lake Geneva is about 10 road miles, Delavan about 10, and Janesville about 27.

From Lake County, Illinois, the drive north is the reason Walworth works as a weekend base. Most of my Illinois buyers who look here are measuring the trip from their primary home, and the 70-minute estimate to Vernon Hills is the number to test on a Friday afternoon in July before you commit.

The village posted notices about WIS 67 pavement replacement between US 14 and Main Street and a WIS 67 improvements public meeting. Check the state's project schedule if a listing is on that stretch.

The village runs five parks, per its parks page: Heyer Park on the square at 100 Park Avenue, Badger Park at 150 Badger Street, Devils Lane Park at 425 Read Street, Rotary Park at 611 Casey Lane and Toynton Park at 601 Beloit Street. All can be rented, but only by village residents.

The Walworth Memorial Library, at 525 Kenosha Street, was organized in 1939 and belongs to the Prairie Lakes Library System. The Big Foot Recreation District, based at 401 Devils Lane, runs sports, pickleball and fitness programs, a kayak club and community events across the high school district.

The lake is the big amenity, covered above: Fontana's beach and launch are about five minutes away. Big Foot Beach State Park in Lake Geneva, which the DNR describes as having 5 miles of hiking trails, a campground and a swimming beach on the lake, is about a 20-minute drive.

The square is the village's everyday center, and a local guide updated in 2026 lists a breakfast and lunch spot, a 1946-era tavern, a bar and grill, a country store with a coffee counter, a seasonal ice cream stand and several restaurants on or near it. For a full grocery run and big-box errands, most Walworth owners drive to Delavan, Lake Geneva or Harvard.

The closest hospital is Mercyhealth Hospital and Medical Center–Walworth, at N2950 State Road 67 near Lake Geneva, with a 24-hour emergency department. By my straight-line measurement from Census coordinates it is about 5.4 miles from the village. Mercyhealth's Harvard hospital, at 1001 Grant Street, also has a 24-hour emergency department and is about 7.2 miles away.

Fire and EMS in the village come from the Walworth Fire/Rescue Department at 247 N. Main Street. In November 2024, village voters approved 825 to 628 a recurring levy increase of $298,472 a year to fund 24/7/365 fire and EMS staffing. That is a line on the village tax bill, and a service most small villages struggle to keep.

The biggest change is industrial. Lake Geneva Regional News reported in its review of 2024 that Kikkoman broke ground in June 2024 on a planned $800 million in Wisconsin investments, including an expansion of its 51-year-old flagship plant in the Town of Walworth and a new 240,000-square-foot plant in Jefferson. A larger plant means more jobs nearby and more truck traffic on the roads around it. If a listing is near the plant, drive the road at shift change.

On the roads, the village has posted notices about WIS 67 pavement replacement and improvements between US 14 and Main Street. I could not open a state project page with dates, so check before you buy on that stretch.

On the tax side, two recent votes raised local levies: the Walworth J1 operating referendum in April 2024 and the village fire and EMS levy in November 2024, both covered above. The village also had its engineer present a storm water drainage study at its February 10, 2020 board meeting.

The housing pipeline is slow. The ACS sample shows only about 57 village homes and about 13 town homes built since 2010.

The Village of Walworth has its own police department. The Town of Walworth is served by the Walworth County Sheriff's Office. I don't characterize the safety of any town or neighborhood. If you want the data, contact the Walworth Police Department for the village or the Sheriff's Office for the town, or look it up yourself in the FBI's Crime Data Explorer.

I could not find a published flood-risk figure for Walworth that I could open, so I won't give one. The village has taken drainage seriously enough to commission a storm water drainage study, presented in February 2020, and the presentation and study are posted on the village site.

Three checks belong on every Walworth house. Look up the address on the FEMA flood map, because a mapped flood zone can mean required flood insurance on a mortgage. In the town, ask whether any part of the parcel falls in the county's shoreland or wetland districts, which limit where you can build. And ask the seller directly about water in the basement. The follow-up question, what they did about it, matters more than the first answer.

The Town of Walworth has acreage, lower average tax rates and county zoning that still allows real farm parcels. The Harvard Metra station is about 8 road miles away for the days you go into the city.

Inside the village, the tax rate is higher than in the lake villages, and listings are few, with 50 sales in the last 12 months of Redfin data. In the town, you take on a well, a septic system and often propane, and the school district can change from one road to the next.