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Dennis Rodkin
Retired Banker Takes Big Loss on State Parkway Condo
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $1,699,500
Sale Price: $1,550,000
The Property: A now-retired executive who joined the banking superstar Jamie Dimon in Chicago has now followed his old boss’s lead in another way: selling his home at about half what he’d been asking for it... Read more
A Woodsy Retreat in Barrington Hills
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $2.68 million
The Property: Tom Ciaglia is a veteran builder in Barrington Hills, and for the most part, he says, buildable lots in that northwest suburb have either rolling hills or dense woods. But several years ago, Ciaglia, whose company is Homes by Pinnacle, purchased a parcel that had both... Read more
What’s the Hemisphere’s Tallest Residential Building? (Hint: It’s Not Here)
By Dennis Rodkin
Chicagoans long ago got used to being snubbed by New York, but one thing that’s hard for New York to overlook is our enviable array of skyscrapers. In addition to having two of the world’s 15 tallest buildings, Chicago has five buildings over 1,000 feet tall—one more than New York. What’s more, three of the world’s 20 tallest buildings completed in 2009 were residential towers in Chicago... Read more
Bill Wrigley Sells Three Properties in One Day
By Dennis Rodkin
Lake Forest
List Price: $6.9 million
Sale Price: $5.6 million

Gold Coast
Sale Price: $6.7 million (for 2 condos)
The Properties: On Thursday, Bill Wrigley closed on the sale of his 16-room lakefront mansion in Lake Forest and on two of the three pieces of his unfinished penthouse space at 65 East Goethe.
Wrigley’s 11,000-square-foot Lake Forest home went up for sale informally in May 2009 priced at $16 million... Read more
Playboy Mansion Condo Features Original 1899 Ballroom
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $5.8 million
The Property: When this Gold Coast mansion belonged to the surgeon George Isham and his wife, Katherine, its palatial ballroom hosted Theodore Roosevelt and Admiral Robert Peary. But past presidents and polar explorers fade in comparison to the home’s most notorious denizen, Hugh Hefner, who lived and played in the house between 1959 and 1974... Read more
Foreclosure Crisis Sparks a Script
By Dennis Rodkin
Stephanie Walker lost a home to foreclosure, but in the aftermath, she found her voice. She has blogged about it and put out an e-book about it. And on Sunday, a group of actors at Victory Gardens Theater performed a staged reading of American Home, her play about it... Read more
Highland Park’s Highest-Priced Sale in Four Years
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $7.349 million
Sale Price: $5.1 million
The Property: A lakefront house in Highland Park was sold on December 5 for $5.1 million. That’s just 58 percent of the $8.7 million that the seller, Maryclaire Collins, was asking for the home when she first listed it in the fall of 2010... Read more
Water Tower Place Condo Belonged to Former Hollywood Starlet
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $1.75 million
The Property: Outside the windows of this 46th-floor condo at Water Tower Place lie two of Chicago’s great beauties: its architecture and its shoreline. They are a good complement to the beauty that resides inside the condo—as well as to the Hollywood beauty that was its most recent resident... Read more