Jennifer Kenny is an accomplished Chicago area architectural historian and real estate broker. Although raised on the north side of Chicago in West Ridge and Uptown, and then residing as a fourth-generation Lakeview resident, she spent most of her adult life in the south side Beverly neighborhood. Living on both the north and south sides of Chicago provides her with a unique overall perspective of the evolving city and its history.
Jennifer has combined her love for historic buildings with a career as a real estate broker with Longwood Real Estate Company since 2006. Real estate is the family business, as her grandmother Julia was a pioneering female real estate broker for C. B. Zeller Real Estate in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood from the 1940s through the 1970s. While Jennifer certainly enjoys her broker activities, architectural history remains her passion. With over 28 years of experience in historic preservation, Ms. Kenny documented over 25,000 buildings and structures for their architectural and/or historic significance. As a consultant, she defined architectural survey work both as a project leader and field surveyor in thirty-five Chicago area communities, developing processes for database collection. As a researcher and author, she successfully nominated individual properties and historic districts to the National Register of Historic Places, as local landmarks, and generated groundbreaking historic structures reports for communities facing a real estate climate with considerable tear down activity. Jennifer is a avid sports fan, and developed a special interest in recreational history and architecture after authoring Olympia Fields Country Club’s nomination to the National Register of HIstoric Places in 2001. Jennifer Kenny is a qualified Architectural Historian under the United States Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards 36 CFR Appendix A to Part 61(c).
Jennifer’s heart remains at the local community level. For over 15 years, she enjoyed volunteer work at the Ridge Historical Society in Chicago, where she coordinated their Architectural Resource Center and researched building histories. She is past President of the Brother Rice H.S. Mothers’ Club, where she managed club volunteers, fundraising, and events. She remains connected to Brother Rice as a volunteer with the school’s Alumni Mothers’ Club. When not watching Fighting Illini sports, honing graphic design skills, researching her Filipina ancestors through Asian genealogy sources, or writing her blog, Jennifer participates in geocaching activities. Geocaching allows her to share special landmark sites in Chicago’s southland with technologically savvy friends. Her mantra is “Every building has a history and a story to tell.”
This licensed Illinois broker at Longwood Real Estate Company in Oak Lawn is spearheading a new endeavor, authoring a blog and a series of books for Local Architecture Chicago. Local Architecture Chicago is a producer of books and e-books to fill a gap in research and writing about historic architecture in unexpected and out-of-the-way historic neighborhoods and suburbs outside of Chicago’s Loop.
Jennifer Kenny is a proud product of Chicago Public Schools. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Planning from the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from Ball State University in Muncie, IN.