A home designed by an architect who traded punches with Frank Lloyd Wright. A house with an underground moat and secret passageways. A residence built for the guy who invented those whooshing pneumatic tubes. These are just a few of the highlights of the busiest weekend of the tour for housewalks -- with interior tours scheduled in Beverly, Palos Park, Riverside and Wilmette.

Here is the lineup:

Five homes. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. It's the 38th annual tour.

An 1896 residence on the tour won a Preservation Award from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks last year. The architect was Harry Hale Waterman (1869-1948).

"Waterman designed many distinctive and architecturally significant houses in Beverly/Morgan Park in the late 1800s and early 1900s," said Grace Kuikman of the Beverly Area Planning Association, the sponsor of the tour. The house is in both Chicago's Longwood Drive historic district and the national Ridge Historic District.

Waterman was born in Wisconsin, but he soon moved with his parents to Chicago, where he attended public schools and Northwestern University. Waterman began his architectural career as a draftsman in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee in 1886.

"To say that this brought him into contact with his fellow Silsbee draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright is something of an understatement. When Wright's uncle, the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, found Wright wandering the streets of Chicago looking for a career here, he arranged to have his nephew board with the Waterman family," writes Harold T. Wolff on the Ridge Historical Society's Web site.

"Wright and Waterman both enjoyed an interest in pugilism. They would occasionally put on boxing gloves and do a little sparring," he said.

Waterman left Silsbee's firm in 1893 to open his own office.

A Colonial Revival on the tour has been completely renovated and decorated with period antiques. The French Eclectic stone home, designed by Murray D. Hetherington (1891-1972), was built on the edge of the woods.

"Hetherington was the second generation of a family which has been associated with the architecture of the Ridge. His father, John Todd Hetherington (1858-1936), moved to Beverly/Morgan Park in the early years of the 20th century," Wolff said.

A cottage was completely renovated, including adding a master suite with a fireplace in the attic.

Tours leave from the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th Street. Participants can choose to self-guide in their own vehicles or, for an additional $4, take the guided tour of the historic districts by trolley. Tickets are $30; $25 in advance. For more information, call the Beverly Area Planning Association, (773) 233-3100; www.bapa.org.

Six homes. Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

A residence built in 1901 is currently owned by proprietors of flower shops. A floral designer will be on hand to answer questions. The two-story family room features a recessed buffet rescued from a Hyde Park mansion. An in-law apartment is used an an art studio.

A white farmhouse features a wraparound porch and a gazebo.

The event is sponsored by the McCord Gallery, 9602 W. Creek Road, in Palos Park. Tickets are $30. For information, call (708) 671-0648; www.mccordgallery.org.

Six homes. Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

In 1895, Joseph L. Silsbee designed a house for John F. Palmer, the inventor of the pneumatic tube.

"Silsbee also designed the Lincoln Park Conservatory, and he employed Frank Lloyd Wright as an apprentice architect," said Kim Jacobs of the Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside, the sponsor of the event. The three-story residence has elements of Victorian, Tudor and Shingle styles. The family room addition features an Arts & Crafts hearth constructed from the same bricks as the chimney. The reception area of the interior has undergone an extensive restoration.

An Arts & Crafts residence on the tour was architect Harold Zook's last commission. The horizontal fieldstone is the work of Italian stonemasons. As the original owner's family grew, those same stonemasons returned to work on the home's expansion. Zook's signature spider web pattern appears on the living room fireplace, and his favorite chevron design is featured on the walls of the den and on the garage door.

The Denniston residence was built in 1887 as a replacement for a house that was constructed as part of the original village development in the 1870s, but it was destroyed by fire. The porch, which extends across the full width of the house, has a view of a park designed by Olmsted, a landscape designer.

The Thorncroft home was designed by William Drummond in 1910 and completed in 1912, the two-story structure features a low-pitched roof with flat edges, stucco walls and wood bands that serve as a sill for an almost continuous band of windows on the second floor. The current owners have extensively renovated and restored the home.

The current owners of a 1922 residence are Arts & Crafts aficionados, and they have filled their home with period antiques and Stickley reproductions. The fireplace mantel, dating from circa 1885, was salvaged from a home in Blackpool, England.

A 1915 Craftsman bungalow originally was built as a duplex for income property. Each unit had a living room, dining room, three bedrooms, one bath, a fireplace and a kitchen. In 1994, the structure was converted into a single-family home. The exterior underwent only minor changes, while the interior of the house is essentially a new home built in 1994, surrounded by walls built in 1915.

The gardens of the Coonley estate also may be visited on the tour.

Tickets for the Riverside Housewalk are $40, $35 in advance. For more information, call the Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside, (708) 442-7906, e-mail housewalk@olmstedsociety.org, or visit www.olmstedsociety.org

Three homes. Hours: 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

An Art Deco lakefront estate home was built in the early 1930s by architect Philip B. Maher for oil industry heir Carbon Petroleum Dubbs. The home, called "Lochmoor," is situated on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. The house has 10 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms.

"Except for an updated kitchen, the house remains virtually unchanged. It's a glimpse into the 1930s," said Rachel Kuhn of the Wilmette Historical Museum, the sponsor of the event. Details include walnut paneling throughout the first-floor entrance, office and living room as well as hand-painted wallpaper in the dining room and original floor-to-ceiling murals in the lower level.

The vintage house also has its mysteries too: an underground moat and secret passageways. "The 'underground moat' is actually an underground tunnel that provides access to utilities, pipes as well as flood control," she said. "The tunnel goes all the way around the home and is fairly large. Access is from a stairway in the basement.

"The 'secret passageways' refer to access from each of the bedrooms through their unique dressing rooms and bathrooms," she said. "There is the main hallway on the second floor connecting two wings of the home, and then there is this 'other' access that snakes through the rooms. Not sure why the home was designed like this, but the home was built during the time of the Lindbergh kidnapping. Safety and security were central features of this home. It is quite amazing."

A 1878 Italianate, a local landmark, is one of Wilmette's oldest remaining homes. The facade was dramatically altered in 2006 as new homeowners took a look underneath gray stucco -- and discovered the home's original wood siding. Thus began a year-long transformation.

Upon entering the front hall, visitors are greeted by a curved walnut staircase with Italianate-style spindles. The front parlor features a Queen-Anne-style fireplace, while the back parlor still has its original bay window. Flooring in both rooms has been painstakingly reproduced over the original floors using the identical wood inlay design. The kitchen and family rooms are completely new. Two stained glass windows depict views from Wilmette's Langdon Beach.

The homeowners have successfully recycled certain items during their renovation. Glass which used to be in their old front door is now in their wet bar cabinetry.

"An oak tree, which fell over in last summer's storm, is being made into a new dining room table," Kuhn said. Additionally, all radiators in the home are from the nearby Mallinckrodt building.

A 1922 Italian Renaissance Revival was designed by Walter Ahlschlager, who also noted for designing the Medinah Athletic Club in Chicago (currently the Hotel InterContinental). A double-sided fireplace leads into a sunroom. The rear of the home has been recently remodeled. Outside, a brick pathway leads to a coach house.

The Village of Wilmette requested that the coach house be saved even though a new attached garage was being built on the property. Currently, the coach house is used as an office, and it also has a modern kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.

Ahlschlager also designed eight movie theaters in Chicago, including the Belmont (now a shopping center) in Lakeview, and the Davis (still in operation) in Lincoln Square.

As a bonus, tour-goers also can visit the Michigan Shores Club, a private lakefront social club designed by D.H. Burnham & Co. in 1897.

Tickets are $50, $25 for students; advance tickets are discounted. Tickets may be picked up at the Wilmette Historical Museum, 609 Ridge Road. For more information, call (847) 853-7666;www.wilmettehistory.org.