GROWTH MODE

The Mather family is new to Lake Forest, but already well acquainted with its charms and limitless potential.

IT SEEMS FITTING THAT I met Gardner and Jessi Mather on the eve of the first day of spring. Their story is rooted in new beginnings—a young family starting their latest chapter in Lake Forest, in their beautiful new (yet very old) house amid the warm embrace of neighbors and old family friends.

“I grew up in Evanston,” Jessi says, “and Gardner grew up in the western suburbs in Hinsdale. We were looking at houses in that crazy time right after the pandemic. Awful-looking houses were selling in like two seconds. And then Gardner found this house that no one wanted because it had been sitting there for a while.”

So, one fateful Sunday, they packed up their three kids ( June, 8; Pearl, 6; and Summer, 3), drove to Lake Forest from their temporary home in the western suburbs, and met with agent Annie Royster.

“We fell in love with this [1893] house that needed tons and tons of work,” says Jessi.

They loved the proximity to town, the lake, and their kids’ school. And they felt comforted being surrounded by so many well-preserved homes that have housed generations of Lake Forest families. The town’s canopy of beautiful trees, open fields, and park land scratched an outdoor itch they’ve had since they were dating in Chicago and going on camping excursions on the weekends.

Lake Forest also reminded them of their childhood passion for the great outdoors. Jessi picked it up from her dad. Gardner’s love of nature came from his maternal grandfather, who had a place in Door County.

“He was an avid fisherman,” Gardner says, “and I vividly remember we would go out on his Boston Whaler and go bass fishing, and I loved every minute of it.”

“We’re very outdoorsy,” Jessi says. “Our kids are very outdoorsy. We have some friends who call them feral, because they’re the kids that are outside if it’s raining after school. People probably drive by wondering ‘is anyone watching those kids?’”

They laugh at the thought, thinking of their kids splashing in the mud and rain, and playing with sticks. (And if they’re not in mud and puddles, they are playing in the sand and sailing the waters of Lake Michigan.)

Of course, the Mathers’ return-to-the-basics, back-to-nature approach to life is a piece of a considerably more complex puzzle. Before Jessi landed in her current position as the nurse at Lake Forest Country Day School, she was an oncology nurse at Northwestern Hospital in the city. For his part, Gardner was one of the first five employees at The Mather Group, which his brother Stewart founded in 2011. In short order, they grew the registered investment advisory from four or five people to what Gardner calls, with characteristic modesty, “a great success.”

That’s an understatement, because TMG grew to 140 advisors and $8B AUM, and ranked among Barron’s list of Top 100 RIA Firms in the country for several years.

Then, in 2019, their world was turned upside down when Stewart was diagnosed with a very rare cancer called cholangiocarcinoma. He passed away 16 months later, in November 2020. It was a shattering moment, and it set into motion a series of events that would lead Gardner and Jessi out of Chicago to the western suburbs, where Stewart was in hospice.

“A lot of this change had to do with my brother, you know, because we used to work together and we lived across Oz Park from each other,” Gardner says. “So, I have a lot of really good memories, and life was just very different than it is now. We were not only brothers; we were best friends. It’s definitely an adjustment.”

The adjustment didn’t just encompass the emotional and physical loss and a move, it also precipitated a change in career. The Mather Group was sold in 2022, and Gardner recently joined Lake Forest-based Compass Financial Partners, heading up business development alongside founders Joe Guin and Tim Hender. He was introduced to Hender by a mutual friend. Fittingly, he met Guin outside the Lake Forest Starbucks.

“I love the people at Compass,” says Gardner. “It’s an amazing team. We’ve broadened our range of where we’re going to gather assets, and I’m really excited for the future.”

Jessi also marvels at the fortuitous nature of Gardner’s new role. “I’ve had a lot more jobs than Gardner,” she says, “because he was with TMG his whole career. I went to the holiday dinner that Compass had, and I was like, ‘wow, this is a really special group.’ I told Gardner, ‘you have to realize not every place is like this!’”

It’s a common theme with the Mathers: there’s a receptivity in each of them that feels inextricably linked to the positivity that’s been flowing their way. Like Thoreau famously said, “go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” Good things happen.

Speaking of good things and dreams, Gardner recently lived out one from his childhood. (And one that will make it easier to spot him around the town.) He acquired a rare model of Range Rover that his dad owned when he was young: a 1995 Range Rover County Classic.

“My dad used to collect cars,” Gardner says. “When I was little, in Hinsdale, we had a detached garage in the back with five or six cars in it. I used to go out there in the summertime. He would always have all this music playing—the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, and all this stuff. He would be waxing his cars. I used to love it. And we would go get ice cream.”

As Gardner gets more impassioned about his story, Jessi does as well. “I’m not really a car person,” she says. “But it’s pretty nostalgic for me, even the way the door sounds when it closes.”

Without skipping a beat, Gardner literally finishes her sentence, adding: “… the door, the smell of the engine. The way it starts. Just everything about it.”

Spoken like a couple in the thrall of a wonderful, bracing new beginning.