Wind Point, WI

Wind Point is named for the point of land that pushes into Lake Michigan north of Racine harbor, and most of its history follows from that geography. Wikipedia's lighthouse entry explains that Racine's 1837 harbor light could not be seen by ships coming from the north because the point blocked it, so the federal Lighthouse Board recommended a light on the point itself in 1870. Congress funded it in 1877, and the village's history timeline records the tower's completion in 1880 at a cost of $10,000, including a foghorn added in 1900.

Residential development came in the 20th century. The village timeline says that in 1919 a buyer named H.M. Wallis purchased most of the northeastern corner of the point, an area of nine farms, for residential development. In 1939 a plat called Sandy Hurst Point was filed with the Racine County Register of Deeds, laying out about 60 lots along what are now Wind Point Road, Park Place, Old Pine Court, Old Pine Circle and White Sand Lane. Several of those street names are still the core of the village's older lake-side neighborhood.

Wind Point became a village in 1954. The area was then part of the Town of Caledonia. According to the village timeline, a public meeting in 1953 discussed incorporation, the state approved an election, and voters chose to form the village 95 to 70. The first Board of Trustees met on June 1, 1954. Natural gas reached the whole village in 1957, and in 1965, after years of concern about wells drying up, the village set up its own water utility.

Two larger projects shaped the rest of the map. The village timeline records that in 1959 S.C. Johnson began an agricultural experiment station on its 64-acre farm in Wind Point, which became the company's entomology research center on Four Mile Road. In 1967 the Village Board approved the first phase of a $12 million planned community presented by S.C. Johnson called Wind Meadows, which accounts for most of the village's attached homes today. In 1997 the U.S. Coast Guard deeded the lighthouse to the village, and in 2024 the board adopted the slogan "The Lighthouse Village."

Wind Point is small. The Census 2024 gazetteer gives it 1.266 square miles of land, about 810 acres, and the village's 2026-2030 outdoor recreation plan describes it as roughly 800 acres. The 2020 census counted 1,651 people per Wikipedia, and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue's 2025 Town, Village and City Taxes report puts the village at 1,629 people and $410.5 million of full (equalized) value.

The boundaries are simple. The village's About page says Wind Point is bordered on the west by Highway G in the Village of Caledonia, on the north and east by Four Mile Road and Lake Michigan, and on the south by Three Mile Road. Main Street runs north and south through the middle, and Lighthouse Drive follows the lake around the point.

The address is the first thing to understand. Wind Point homes use a Racine, WI 53402 mailing address, the same ZIP code that covers much of Caledonia. On a listing, "Racine, WI 53402" can be a Wind Point house, a Caledonia house or a North Bay house. Coming from Lake County, Illinois, where the mailing town usually matches the tax bill, the buyers I talk to don't expect that, and the municipality line on the tax bill is the only thing I'd trust. The tax rate, the police department, the zoning code and the water utility all follow the municipality, not the ZIP code.

Wind Point also has a neighbor inside its orbit. The Village of North Bay, a separate village of about 200 people on the lake just south of the point, shares Wind Point's police department and municipal court. If a listing is on the lake south of Three Mile Road, I'd check which village it is in before reading anything else.

The lighthouse is the center of village life in a literal sense. The Wind Point Lighthouse site says the tower stands 108 feet tall, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was first lit on November 15, 1880, and is still lit today. Wikipedia calls it one of the oldest and tallest active lighthouses on the Great Lakes, credits its design to Orlando Metcalfe Poe, dates its National Register listing to 1984, and notes a $210,000 restoration of the tower in the summer of 2007.

The village uses the old keepers' quarters. The board held its first meeting in the lighthouse hall in December 1964 under a Coast Guard lease, per the village timeline, and the lighthouse hall at 4725 Lighthouse Drive remains the official meeting location. The Wind Point Police Department also operates out of the building. The 2026-2030 recreation plan lists the lighthouse grounds at 5.013 acres, open to the public daily, with tower tours on pre-scheduled dates. The south lawn can be rented and can hold four groups of up to 150 people between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., and the hall holds 35 people with a full kitchen.

For a homeowner nearby, the lighthouse is a public park at the end of the street. The grounds include a memorial brick garden near the lakeshore. Lighthouse Drive also carries tour traffic and event traffic on summer weekends, and the planned golf course rebuild next door (covered in the development section) adds a clubhouse and parking question to this exact corner of the village.

Wind Point has one of the country's best-known houses. Wikipedia's Wingspread entry says the Herbert F. Johnson House, known as Wingspread, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1938 and 1939 for Herbert Fisk Johnson Jr., then president of S.C. Johnson. At 14,000 square feet it is one of the largest residences Wright designed, and Wright called it the last of his Prairie-style houses. It sits at 33 East Four Mile Road near the center of the point.

The design explains the name. Four wings radiate in a pinwheel from a central living room with a domed roof, a 30-foot elliptical chimney and three tiers of clerestory windows. The facade is Cherokee red brick with stucco and sandstone courses, cypress trim and red roof tiles. Wikipedia counts about 500 windows. Wingspread was listed on the National Register in 1975, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989, and is part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Trail established in 2017.

The house has been a conference center since 1960, when the property was donated to The Johnson Foundation. A 40-room Guest House was added in 2002. The Wingspread website describes the campus today as 36 acres along Lake Michigan with 40 guest rooms and more than 15,000 square feet of meeting space. Wikipedia reports that as of 2023 free tours were offered three times a day, five days a week, when no events were scheduled, and that in 2023 S.C. Johnson bought 13 acres next to Wingspread. I'd confirm current tour hours directly, since they depend on the conference calendar.

The architecture continues across the street. The village's About page says The Prairie School, a private, independent preschool through 12th grade school, opened in 1965 on a campus designed by Taliesin Associates, the firm that carried on Wright's practice, and built in phases between 1965 and 2005. The same page lists S.C. Johnson's Institute of Insect Science, opened in 1968, as one of the village's landmarks.

For a buyer, the practical point is land use. Wingspread, The Prairie School, the S.C. Johnson research campus, Shoop Park and the lighthouse grounds together hold a large share of the point, which is one reason Wind Point has so few house lots on the lake.

Wind Point does not publish named neighborhoods, so I read it by street pattern and zoning. The village zoning code, updated in January 2026, has an R-1 Estate Single-Family district, R-2 and R-3 single-family districts, an R-4 multi-family district, a business district, two institutional districts and a park and conservancy district. The official map is on Racine County's zoning map site, so I'd check the district of any parcel there before assuming its lot rules.

Lighthouse Drive is the lakefront. It runs from the lighthouse around the point, and it is where the public $3 million-plus sales in the next sections happened. Lots here back onto the Lake Michigan bluff, and the shoreland rules in the zoning section apply to almost every one of them.

The Sandy Hurst Point plat of 1939 is the older lake-side neighborhood: Wind Point Road, Park Place, Old Pine Court and Old Pine Circle, and White Sand Lane, many reaching toward Four Mile Road. The village timeline describes about 60 lots in the original plat. The village's water page notes that many homes built before 1966 still have private wells, and this is the part of the village where I'd expect that question first.

Wind Meadows is the planned community S.C. Johnson began in 1967. The recreation plan mentions a bike path along Wind Meadows and a path from Greenwood Court to Lakewood Drive. On October 5, 2026, the condominium listings in the village were all on courts in this area: Woodfield Court, Lakefield Court and Deepwood Court.

The rest of the village fills in between Main Street, Three Mile Road, Four Mile Road and Highway G: streets like Lamplighter Lane and Hunt Club Road, and houses along Four Mile and Three Mile roads themselves. The Four Mile Road reconstruction in the development section runs along the north edge.

Wind Point is almost entirely owner-occupied single-family housing. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 782 housing units, plus or minus 164, of which 692 are detached houses and 78 are single-family attached homes. Buildings of two or more units are a rounding error. Of 748 occupied homes, 731, about 98%, are owner-occupied, and the survey counts only 2 seasonal units, so Wind Point is a year-round market, not a summer-house lake town.

Homes here are large for the area. The survey's median number of rooms is 8.0, against 5.7 for Racine County as a whole. The median home was built in 1974, against 1968 for the county. The biggest building waves were the 1970s (273 homes) and the 1980s (163), followed by the 1960s (175) and 1950s (76). Only about 25 homes date to before 1950, and about 41 were built from 2000 onward, which fits a village that was largely built out by 1990.

The survey's median owner-estimated value is $306,600, plus or minus $39,440, against $251,400 for the county. That figure is a five-year average of owner estimates that includes the Wind Meadows condominiums, so it lags the current market and understates the single-family houses. The market section uses Zillow and Redfin data for current prices.

Each era brings its own inspection list. A 1970s ranch or two-story is often on its second roof and may still have original windows. A 1980s Wind Meadows unit raises association questions: the reserve, the special-assessment history and what the association covers. A pre-1966 house may have a private well that the village regulates. The expectation I most often reset with Illinois buyers is that a big, well-kept 1970s house has no near-term spending ahead of it.

Wind Point is the closest thing Racine County has to the Illinois North Shore's estate lakefront, and buyers from Lake Forest and Highland Park often want to know whether it prices like home. The honest answer from public records is that it has true $3 million-plus lakefront, but very few such sales, years apart.

Here is the dated evidence. BizTimes reported in December 2023 that a 13,120-square-foot Lake Michigan home in Wind Point sold for $3.1 million, per state records. The modern Prairie-style house, designed by architect Ken Dahlin and built in 2002, sits on 3.8 acres with more than 600 linear feet of lake frontage and has five bedrooms, 6.5 baths, an indoor pool, a sauna, a tennis court, a five-car garage and an elevator. The Milwaukee Business Journal reported in October 2023 that it was listed at $3.25 million, so it sold at about 95% of that price.

Four years earlier, BizTimes reported in August 2019 that a Lighthouse Drive home with 300 feet of Lake Michigan frontage, a swimming pool and a tennis court sold for $3,942,000, per state records. Those two sales are the public high-water marks I could find.

The current market is lower. On October 5, 2026 Coldwell Banker's Wind Point page showed 12 active or pending listings. The highest was $965,000 for a five-bedroom, 5,264-square-foot house on Lamplighter Lane, followed by a pending $799,900 listing on the same street. Nothing was listed above $1 million and nothing on Lighthouse Drive. In Redfin's monthly data, the highest monthly median in the 12 months through May 2026 was $975,000 in March 2026, a single sale that took 282 days.

Put plainly: Wind Point lakefront is a $2 million-plus product only when a Lighthouse Drive estate comes up, and that has happened in public view about twice in seven years. Off the lake, the village tops out around $1 million. For a lakefront parcel I'd want a recent bluff and shoreline assessment from a coastal engineer, the setback of the house from the bluff edge, and permits for any existing shore protection, because the zoning section's 100-foot shore yard governs what can be rebuilt.

Wind Point is one of the higher-priced places in Racine County and one of the steadier ones. Zillow's typical home value for Wind Point was $442,834 in August 2026, up 3.1% from $429,448 a year earlier and 9.6% over two years. Racine County as a whole was $318,751, up about 5.6%. In the same month the City of Racine was $222,732, the Village of Caledonia $390,636 and the Village of Mount Pleasant $350,292. Zillow's top-tier index, the most expensive third of homes, was $619,578 for Wind Point.

Sales are few. Redfin's public monthly data counts 31 Wind Point sales in the 12 months from June 2025 through May 2026, against 33 the year before. Monthly medians swing hard on so few sales: from $280,250 in August 2025, on four sales, to $975,000 in March 2026, on one. In May 2026 the median was $519,000 on a single sale. Inventory peaked at 13 homes in October and November 2025 and was 8 in May 2026. Median days on market ran from 11 to 282 depending on the month, and sale-to-list ratios sat between about 93% and 102%.

The October 2026 listings show the spread inside the village. Coldwell Banker's October 5, 2026 page had five condominiums in Wind Meadows priced from $224,900 to $369,900, single-family houses from $280,000 to $639,000, and two Lamplighter Lane houses at $799,900 and $965,000.

How I'd price here: Zillow estimates every home and smooths the condos and the lakefront together; Redfin reports what sold in a month. With two or three sales most months, the comparable sales that matter are on the same street and in the same product, condo or single-family, lakefront or not. Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the comparison buyers make first is the tax bill, which is next.

Wisconsin property tax uses different words from Illinois. The local assessor sets an assessed value. The Department of Revenue separately sets a full (equalized) value for each municipality, and the ratio between the two is the assessment level. Tax rates are quoted in mills, dollars per $1,000 of assessed value. Wind Point contracts with Associated Appraisal Consultants for assessments, per the village's assessment page, and the 2026 Board of Review met on May 13, 2026.

The cleanest comparison is DOR's full-value rate. The 2025 Town, Village and City Taxes report puts Wind Point at an assessment level of 0.98, a gross rate of 1.387% of full value, and an effective rate of 1.236% after the state school levy credit. The whole village is in one school district, Racine Unified, so this is not an average of several districts. For comparison, the same report gives the City of Racine an effective rate of 2.218%, the Village of Caledonia 1.497%, the Village of Mount Pleasant 1.566% and Racine County overall 1.546%. That gap with the City of Racine, on similar county and school levies, is one of the clearest numbers in this guide.

A worked example. On a $442,834 primary residence, Zillow's August 2026 typical value, the 1.236% effective rate gives about $5,473 a year before the lottery and gaming credit. The DOR's 2025 lottery credit report says that credit applies only to a primary residence and is a $27,000 credit value times the school tax rate, with a statewide average of $190 for 2025-26. With a credit near that average, the bill would be roughly $5,280. A $3.1 million lakefront home at the same rate would carry roughly $38,300 a year. The same $442,834 house at the City of Racine's rate would be about $9,820.

Bills come out in December. The village's tax page says full or first-installment payments go to the Village of Wind Point through January 31, and later payments go to the Racine County Treasurer.

Two more costs. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value, customarily paid by the seller, which is $9,300 on a $3.1 million sale. And Wind Point's stormwater charge rose sharply in 2026, covered in the utilities section. This is general information, not tax advice. Your bill depends on your parcel, credits and the assessor.

Wind Point writes its own rules, which matters on the lake. Unlike Somers, which adopted Kenosha County's ordinance, Wind Point has its own zoning chapter and its own shoreland, wetland and floodplain chapter. Anything you plan to build goes through the village, not the county.

Lot sizes start large. The village zoning code sets the R-1 Estate Single-Family district at a minimum of 1.5 acres and 200 feet of width, with a minimum house size of 1,800 square feet and a 35-foot height limit. R-2 lots start at 20,000 square feet and 100 feet wide, and R-3 lots at 15,000 square feet and 100 feet wide. Every residential district sets a shore yard of 100 feet from the ordinary high-water mark for houses and for detached accessory buildings.

The shoreland chapter adds Lake Michigan rules. The village's shoreland, wetland and floodplain chapter caps impervious surfaces, including the house, garage, sheds, driveways, parking and patios, at 15% of the property within 300 feet of the Lake Michigan shoreline. Open-sided structures such as gazebos and decks can sit in the shore yard only if they stay at least 35 feet from the high-water mark, total no more than 200 square feet, are colored in earth tones, and come with an approved plan to keep a vegetative buffer across at least 70% of the frontage within 35 feet of the water. They also need a conditional use permit. Paths and stairways to the water are limited to six feet wide.

Design is reviewed, too. The village's Architectural Review Board page says ARB approval is required for new structures and for changes to at least 20% of the face of an existing structure, and that the board considers the view from neighbors' back yards as well as from the street. Colors generally run from white and neutrals to earth tones.

On a lakefront parcel, I'd read the shoreland chapter before falling for a floor plan. A 15% impervious cap within 300 feet of the lake is tight on a big lot with a long driveway, and shore protection on Lake Michigan usually also needs state and federal permits.

Utilities in Wind Point come from three places. The village's water page says the Wind Point Water and Stormwater Utility owns the pipes inside the village and buys water wholesale from the Village of Caledonia Utility District, a blend treated by the Racine and Oak Creek water utilities. Sanitary sewer is not a village service: the Caledonia Utility District provides it and bills it separately. Electricity and natural gas come from We Energies, per the village's resident guide.

Wells are the item I'd check first on an older house. The same page says all residents have access to municipal water, but many homes built before 1966 have a private well. Every private well in the village must be either permitted or properly abandoned. A well permit lasts five years and requires water test results from a certified lab at every application and renewal. Abandoning a well means having it capped by a licensed provider and filing the DNR form, with a copy to the village within 45 days. On any pre-1966 listing I'd ask for the well permit or the abandonment paperwork.

Stormwater costs went up. The village's water page says the stormwater charge, a flat rate per equivalent runoff unit on each parcel, rose from $13.91 to $25.87 effective January 1, 2026. Water bills are quarterly, mailed around the 15th of March, June, September and December.

The water mains themselves are aging. The Four Mile Road project page says the mains along Four Mile Road were installed in the 1960s and need replacing, which requires reconstructing the road. The village secured a grant for the road portion and expects completion by the end of November 2026. Driveway approaches along Four Mile Road are being replaced with asphalt.

All of Wind Point is in the Racine Unified School District, a single K-12 district, so there is no split elementary and union high school system here. DOR's 2025 school-district tables put the village's entire $410.5 million of value in Racine Unified.

Racine Unified is large. In the DPI's 2024-25 report card data it enrolled 15,781." Wikipedia lists these assignments for Wind Point: Olympia Brown and North Park elementary schools for different sections, Jerstad-Agerholm K-8 School for middle grades, and Horlick High School. I found no 2024-25 report card for a North Park Elementary, so I treat that part of the Wikipedia list as out of date.

The village no longer has its own public school. Wikipedia records that Wind Point Elementary, opened in 1966, closed after the 2012-13 school year, and that the building was demolished in 2018.

The Prairie School, covered in the architecture section, is a private, independent preschool through grade 12 school inside the village. It is a tuition school with its own admissions; nothing about a Wind Point address affects enrollment there.

Assignment follows the parcel and Racine Unified's current boundary map, not the mailing address or an old reference page. Racine Unified's boundary pages blocked automated access when I checked, so confirm every address with the district before counting on a school.

Wind Point's park system is small and lakefront-heavy. The 2026-2030 recreation plan, adopted December 11, 2025, lists two village parks, the lighthouse grounds and Village Green, plus about one mile of public paths, with Shoop Park's golf course in the village but owned by the City of Racine.

Shoop Park is the big one. The plan lists it at 53.46 acres at 4510 Lighthouse Drive, a nine-hole municipal course next to the lighthouse's south lawn whose signature hole is a par 5 that runs along the shoreline. The village's parks page says it first opened in 1920, while the village timeline dates a six-hole course there to 1929. In winter, the plan notes, the park is used for sledding and cross-country skiing. The course is in the middle of a rebuild covered in the development section.

Village Green, at 215 East Four Mile Road next to the village office, is 6.403 acres with a pavilion, a playground, two tennis courts, two pickleball courts, a perimeter path and picnic tables. Court reservations cost $5 per court per hour and are limited to village residents.

The paths are short but connected: the ring around Village Green, the bike path along Wind Meadows and the section beside The Prairie School. The plan's resident survey asked for wider walking and biking space on Lighthouse Drive, more connected paths, repaired lake access at Shoop Park and access to the top of the lighthouse.

For a sand beach, the plan points to Racine's North Beach and Zoo Beach a few miles south, plus Samuel Myers Park and Carre-Hogle Park. Nearby county and natural areas include Sanders Park Hardwoods State Natural Area, Cliffside Park, Crawford Park and Petrifying Springs Park.

The biggest change coming to Wind Point is on land the village does not own. Racine County Eye reported that on July 21, 2026 the Racine Common Council voted 15-0 to approve the Leipold Johnson Golf Group's plan to redevelop the Shoop Park course and shoreline. The terms, as reported a week earlier, are a 10-year lease renewable at the group's option for four more 10-year terms, up to 50 years, with a one-time $1.96 million payment to the city and $25,000 a year adjusted for inflation.

The group committed to spend at least $10 million on a redesigned course, new irrigation, a new clubhouse, equipment, bluff stabilization and a restored prairie-dune landscape. The course stays public and stays at nine holes, designed by Keiser Golf Group, under the name Lighthouse Dunes at Shoop Park. City public works materials describe a revetment along roughly 3,000 feet of shoreline, estimated at $1.2 million to $1.3 million plus about $150,000 for engineering and permitting, with a beach left between the revetment and the water. Wisconsin.Golf reported that the project is privately financed. The state DNR and the Army Corps of Engineers still have to review the shoreline work.

Wind Point controls the permits. The village's project page says that because the park is inside the village, building and zoning permits run through Wind Point. The Village Board approved a lease for a parking lot on village-owned land in February 2026 with five conditions, including a developer's agreement, a financial guarantee and proof of the city's approvals, and the lease cannot be signed until all are met. The village's September 2026 update says the developer was still deciding whether to add another property to the course, and that the project will go before the Plan Commission, Architectural Review Board and Village Board. For houses on Lighthouse Drive, I'd follow the parking and clubhouse decisions closely, because they sit at the lighthouse end of the street.

Two village projects are underway as well. The Four Mile Road reconstruction, for 1960s water mains, is scheduled to finish by the end of November 2026. And the village is weighing a new municipal building: TMJ4 reported in November 2025 that the 2026 budget included $4.2 million in debt financing for it, against a construction estimate of about $3.8 million, and the village's building page says an ad hoc committee was created in September 2026, with its first meeting set for September 24.

Wind Point is at the far end of the road network. There is no highway through it; Main Street, Highway G, Three Mile Road and Four Mile Road connect it to Racine and to Highway 32 and I-94 to the west.

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

From Wind Point, downtown Racine is about 5 road miles and 12 minutes. Downtown Milwaukee is about 22 miles and 43 minutes, and Milwaukee's Mitchell Airport about 18 miles and 34 minutes. Vernon Hills is about 53 miles and 73 minutes. Downtown Chicago is about 79 miles and 105 minutes, and O'Hare about 75 miles and 116 minutes. Lake Geneva is about 50 miles and 74 minutes.

The useful point for Lake County, Illinois buyers is that Wind Point is a Milwaukee-area address more than a Chicago-area one. Vernon Hills is a bit over an hour on a clear road; the Loop and O'Hare are past 90 minutes even with no traffic, and rush hour on I-94 and the Illinois tollway adds real time to every Chicago number.

Wind Point has no rail station, and the two options are both a drive away. On the same free-flow router, Amtrak's Sturtevant station is about 12.5 road miles and 27 minutes from the village, and the Metra station in Kenosha about 16 miles and 34 minutes.

Amtrak's Hiawatha is the faster train. In Amtrak's published schedule feed for the week of October 12, 2026, the Sturtevant station has 6 weekday Hiawatha trains toward Chicago Union Station, the first at 7:43 a.m., with rides of 76 to 84 minutes, and 6 toward Milwaukee. The Borealis adds one train each way daily.

Metra's Union Pacific North line ends at Kenosha. In Metra's GTFS schedule data for the same week, Kenosha has 10 weekday trains to Ogilvie Transportation Center and 9 back, with rides of 92 or 102 minutes, and 8 trains each way on Saturdays and Sundays.

Put plainly, a Wind Point to Loop trip by train is two hours or more door to door. For a regular downtown Chicago commute, Wind Point is a stretch; for occasional trips, the Hiawatha from Sturtevant is the practical choice.

The Wind Point Police Department, which has served the village since 1959, provides police service in Wind Point and in the Village of North Bay in conjunction with the Racine County Sheriff's Department, and operates from the lighthouse at 4725 Lighthouse Drive with limited office hours. Fire and emergency medical service come from the Caledonia Fire Department under contract, per the village's resident guide. I don't characterize the safety of any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can ask the department or look up reported figures on the FBI Crime Data Explorer.

For a true estate on the water, Lighthouse Drive is the street, and public sales there have reached $3.1 million and $3.94 million.

The trade-offs are concrete. The estate lakefront trades so rarely that waiting for the right house is part of the plan. The bluff, the 100-foot shore yard and the 15% impervious cap near the lake limit what can be added. Older homes may have private wells that need a village permit. Shoop Park's rebuild will bring construction and then more visitors to the lighthouse end of the village. And Chicago and O'Hare are past 90 minutes on a clear road.

I'd pull the tax bill first and confirm the municipality, the well status and the shoreland setbacks for the exact parcel before falling for a house.