In 1887, the architecture firm of Cobb & Frost built this 15-room red brick and limestone mansion for Perry Smith Jr., the husband of Emily Louise McCormick, a niece of the reaper king Cyrus McCormick. It was later home to Dorothy Wrigley Offield, the daughter of the chewing-gum scion and Cubs owner P. K. Wrigley. The conical turret that anchors the residence’s west end—and which contains the kitchen, the master bedroom, and an open-air room—was a 1991 addition by Hammond, Beeby & Babka.

The most recent owners of the house, Dennis and Marcia Fields, bought the place in July 2005 for $4.769 million. After six months of extensive renovations by the architect Marvin Herman, the Fieldses put the house back on the market, priced at $8.4 million, though they later dropped the price to $6.9 million. The house sold this past March, after 979 days on the market, for $5.2 million—a 38 percent drop from the couple’s original asking price.

Mary Bennett, an agent with Koenig & Strey GMAC, sold the house; the buyers were Robert Growney and his wife, Wilma. From 1997 to 2001, Growney was the president and chief operating officer of Motorola.

Photography: Kim Thornton