Sept. 23--Robert A. Faganel built more than 2,000 units of housing in the western suburbs, most of them single-family homes in central DuPage County.
"Bob was a wonderful link back to the glorious past of development where integrity and fair business dealings were paramount," said Howard Levine, an accountant who managed some of Faganel's affairs and partnered with him in several ventures. "He was just was a very nice man to work with."
Faganel, 84, died Aug. 22 of complications from renal cancer at Joanne's House at Hope Hospice in Bonita Springs, Fla., said his son, David. He had homes in Bloomingdale and Bonita Springs.
The son of a bricklayer, Faganel was born in Elmhurst and graduated from York High School. He attended Elmhurst College for two years and spent four years in the Air Force during the Korean War, his son said. After returning home, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
After college, Faganel began working for local homebuilders. He was president of Wheaton-based Wynwood Builders, which in the early 1960s built the Knolls neighborhood at Jewell and County Farm roads in Winfield.
In 1964 he opened Robert A. Faganel Builders. An early project was the multiphase Spring Brook neighborhood in southwest Wheaton, which broke ground in the late 1960s.
In 1969, Faganel started work on the 102-home High Knob subdivision on Orchard Road immediately west of the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton. To make way for the development, Faganel chose to raze a Prairie-style mansion that had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte Robert C. Spencer in 1911 for Standard Oil executive William P. Cowan.
In the early 1970s, Faganel built homes in Naperville's Farmstead subdivision, near 79th and Washington streets. Several years later he bought some land from St. Francis High School in Wheaton and built the St. Francis Oaks subdivisions.
Along with Wheaton homebuilder Joe Keim -- a frequent collaborator -- Faganel developed the Pine Hill subdivision in Lisle, which won approval in 1978. In the 1980s Faganel built homes in Wheaton's Stonehedge neighborhood and with Keim played a major part in laying out the large Danada North subdivision in Wheaton.
Like many developers, Faganel enjoyed broad discretion over the street names he selected in subdivisions he built. In High Knob in Wheaton he named one street after Wheaton Mayor Marget Hamilton, and another, Hevern Drive, after his then-wife's maiden name.
Other street names were by turns personal or fanciful -- and sometimes both. Faganel called a short street in Wheaton Lois Lane, after his daughter's first name, but insisted on making the street name identical to the name of the "Superman" character. And he acknowledged that Gone Away Court and Gone Away Lane in Wheaton had no deep meaning.
"I think we did that name just whimsically," Faganel told the Tribune in 2005.
Faganel's own surname briefly was a street name in developments in Wheaton and Lisle before residents on those streets banded together and had their street names changed. In Wheaton, Faganel Court was changed to Pin Oak Court, while in Lisle, Faganel Drive took on the name Black Oak Drive.
"People were tired of spelling (the name) so they changed it. There's no animosity," he told the Tribune in 2005.
In the 1990s, Faganel joined with homebuilder Ron Russell to develop the massive Klein Creek Golf Course community in Winfield, which included about 300 single-family homes. He also built 11 homes in the 17-home Dais Woods development on Amy Court in Glen Ellyn, which broke ground in 1995.
Faganel's final area development was the Medinah Woods Club in Itasca, east of the Medinah Country Club where Faganel had been a longtime member.
In 1991, Faganel began spending his winters in Florida. After retiring in 1995 and selling his business to his son, he golfed, traveled and continued to invest in real estate, his son said.
Faganel was very active in investor groups that developed projects in Batavia and the Fox Valley, Levine said. He emerged from retirement to work with his son on the development of 150 single-family homes and town homes on the former Santa Fe Speedway site in Willow Springs.
Faganel was a longtime donor to Elmhurst College. In 2000, the college renamed its gymnasium R.A. Faganel Hall after him.
A first marriage, to Margaret Faganel, ended in divorce. In addition to his son, Faganel is survived by his wife of 15 years, Shari; another son, Paul; a daughter, Lois Keller; a stepson, Scott Stevens; and seven grandchildren.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
