METTAWA, Ill. -- The Lake County home of former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II may become a national landmark.

Lake County Forest Preserve officials have agreed to ask that the 64-year-old Mettawa home be recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. If that happens, they hope the home eventually becomes a National Historic Landmark.

"It's a way of validating the significance of the place," said Katherine Hamilton-Smith, who is managing the county's $2 million restoration project on the home.

District officials on Friday approved a conceptual plan to make the home an educational center and establish a scholar-in-residence program. They hope to approve architectural plans this fall, officials said.

The project will be funded through an Illinois Historic Preservation Agency grant.

Friends bought the home from the Stevenson family after the former governor's death in 1965 and donated it to the district in 1974. It served as office space for the Lake County Health Department until 2000.

Stevenson rebuilt the home -- which is located near the Des Plaines River -- after a fire in 1938.