LAKE FOREST
LIST $5 MILLION SALE $4,755,500

A 25-room mansion in Lake Forest that was built in 1928 has been sold as a short sale (which means the bank approved the deal for a lesser amount than was owed on the mortgage). Designed by Philip Lippincott Goodwin—one of the architects of New York’s Museum of Modern Art—and modeled in part after a country house in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandy, the home originally belonged to Noble Judah and his wife, Dorothy Patterson Judah. Noble was a Chicago lawyer and state representative who served as ambassador to Cuba from 1927 to 1929; Dorothy was an heiress to the National Cash Register fortune. The couple divorced in 1933.

In 1999, Gerald and Gail Miller paid $3.375 million for the house and the 3.14 acres still attached to it (the estate originally comprised 40 acres). In July 2010, they put it on the market with an asking price of $5.9 million (later reduced to $5 million). The sale closed in late December, and the Millers’ agent, Marina Carney of Griffith, Grant & Lackie, registered it as a short sale with Midwest Real Estate Data. Information from the Lake County Recorder of Deeds does not clearly show the amount of the mortgage. I could not reach the Millers, and Carney did not respond to a request for comment. The buyers are not identified in public records.

Photograph: Chris Guillen