New fly-in community to bring 50 hangar homes to Poplar Grove

July 2, 2025|By Kevin Haas|In Business/development, Top Stories, Real estate, Belvidere, Featured, News, 815 News, Rock River Current, Local

This 3D rendering from architect Jeffrey A. Myers shows the plan for future hangar homes in Bel Air North in Poplar Grove. (Image provided by Jeffrey A. Myers)

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
Get our mobile app

POPLAR GROVE — A new fly-in community planned for the village will add 50 hangar homes to the northeast portion of the Poplar Grove Airport campus.

Bel Air North is a new aviation lifestyle development off Orth Road that allows homeowners to live alongside their aircraft, providing simple access to fly at any time. The demand for the development was high, with all 50 lots selling in just 30 days.

“Golfers want to live on a golf course. Boaters and fisherman want to live on a lake or river. Pilots want to live with their airplanes, and their like-minded friends,” said Steve Thomas, president of Poplar Grove Airport and Poplar Grove Airmotive. “That’s the real draw. We keep it a real positive, social place here.”

The development requires approval of the Poplar Grove village board. The proposal is expected to go before the village’s Planning and Zoning Commission on July 8 before being considered by the board later this month.

If approved, Thomas expects work to start this fall on the sewer, water and road infrastructure for the new development. Some of the hangar home development will begin immediately after that, with the bulk expected next summer.

“There are some people who are just planning ahead,” Thomas said. “They’ll hold off a year or two, not just for their personal timing and planning but also to get ideas from people who have already constructed something.”

This aerial image of the Poplar Grove Airport illustrates where the planned Bel Air North development will be built in Boone County. (Photo provided by Poplar Grove Airport)

The homes will have living spaces ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet. They’re built on small lots that require minimal yard maintenance. Some designs will integrate the hangar and house, or a hangar dressed like a home. Some will have the living space built over the hangar, said Philip Preston, who is working with builder Greg Powers and architect Jeffrey A. Myers to build several of the properties, including his own future home.

“You just want to live where your passion is,” said Preston, the former president of Littlestar Plastics in Machesney Park. “It’s just the same as waking up in the morning on a ski slope and going skiing, or waking up on a lake and going fishing or boating or water skiing. It marries your passion to where you’re living.”

Bel Air North is the second fly-in community to be developed on the airport grounds. Just southwest of the main hard surface runway is Bel Air Estates, an airport community that started in 1994 and has 140 homes with easy access to the airport.

The Poplar Grove Airport, 11619 Illinois Route 76, has two grass runways and one 4,000-foot-long hard surface runway with a GPS approach. It also has aircraft maintenance through Poplar Grove Airmotive, which shares ownership with the airport, and a flight school for pilots in training. It’s also home to the Poplar Grove Vintage Wings and Wheels Museum, which is adjacent to the future Bel Air North.

Powers, who has lived in Bel Air Estates for 30 years, said it makes for an ideal aviation community.

“It’s kind of like a Field of Dreams for aviators,” he said. “At night when the sun’s going down and the Piper Cubs are circling the field and landing and you’re sitting out there and everybody’s driving around in their golf carts … Everybody here has a common shared interest. It’s pretty magical.”