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Dennis Rodkin
Gertrude Lempp Kerbis’s Greenhouse Condos
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $375,000
The Property: While working for two top Chicago architectural firms in the 1950s and ’60s, Gertrude Lempp Kerbis made contributions to design elements at O’Hare International Airport and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Today’s tour is at a building that was a benchmark project for her, one that she has said was among the first places where she worked on her own... Read more
Former Motorola CEO Sells Water Tower Condo
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $1.595 million
Sale Price: $1.46 million
The Property: Ed Zander, the former chairman and CEO of Motorola, and his wife, Mona, have sold their 67th-floor condo at Water Tower Place... Read more
Both Sides of Lake View
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $3.45 million
The Property: Today’s property is a handsome brick home, once the coach house of a large estate, built in Lake View in 1913. And today’s property is a slick contemporary clad in metal shingles and horizontal-laid wood siding built in the past six years in Lake View... Read more
Group Turns Around Distressed Properties—and Peoples’ Lives
By Dennis Rodkin
Houses and condos that lenders take over in foreclosure often need a lot of help getting turned around into habitable places again. For one Skokie-based not-for-profit, cleaning those homes provides an opportunity to repair something else at the same time: the lives of its employees... Read more
In River Forest, a Remnant of the Century of Progress
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $749,000
The Property: At the Century of Progress World’s Fair held on Chicago’s lakefront from 1933 to 1934, the Federal Housing Administration exhibited a model for a house it hoped to see spring up all over the country. It’s believed that this River Forest residence is that house, rebuilt on a corner lot after the fair... Read more
A Highland Fling in Wheaton
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $3.265 million
The Property: Everybody likes to bring home souvenirs of their travels. From a trip to Scotland, you might bring back a kilt (like the one I’m wearing in today’s video) or an entire house... Read more
Chicago’s Midrange Homeowners Taking the Hardest Hits
By Dennis Rodkin
When Zillow announced last week that Chicago is the country’s number one market for homebuyers, I snarkily replied on Twitter that, by the same token, Chicago is the number one place where sellers are taking it in the shorts. Two reports out that same week backed me up... Read more
Old Town Stunner Sells After Three Years
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $1.08 million
Sale Price: $975,000
The Property: From the street, this house, built in 1886 in Old Town, is unassuming. It’s no visual competition for its neighbors on the block, including the zany and eccentric Carl Street Studios or the suave riff on Art Deco at Theophil Studios... Read more