Gold Coast
List Price: $9.45 million
Sale Price: $8 million
This vintage Gold Coast mansion underwent such a thorough makeover during the past four years that even its address changed. The transformation began in August 2004 when Terence and Susan Graunke bought the house for $6 million. “It was like this beautiful, aging actress, and somebody just needed to have the taste and the heart to bring her back,” says Pamela Sage, the Baird & Warner agent who handled the 2004 sale and the more recent December 2008 sale, when the Graunkes sold the place for $8 million.
Built in 1917 from a design by the architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, the 9,560-square-foot house had a walled garden when the Graunkes bought it. The couple replaced the garden with a garage—which included a basement wine cellar and a rooftop terrace—and meticulously renovated the home’s interior. “They wanted to have everything you would want in a modern house,” says Sage, “but it all had to feel perfectly authentic.” During the restoration, the Graunkes learned that the home’s address had at some point been changed, and they managed to have it changed back. “That’s how true to the original they wanted to be,” Sage says.
Terence Graunke, a principal at Lake Capital, did not respond to a request for an interview, and the buyers could not be identified from public records.
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Photograph: Chrisguillen.com