Events Newsletters Subscribe

Dennis Rodkin
A Cottage Grows in Wilmette
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $950,000
The Property: When it was 99 years old, this Wilmette home grew from a modest two-bedroom cottage into a four-bedroom Victorian with fanciful Carpenter Gothic trim. Built in 1893 in what is now a highly desirable eastern Read more
Prairie Avenue’s Unlikely Survivor
By Dennis Rodkin
A 125-year-old brick and sandstone Queen Anne–style mansion at 28th Street and Prairie Avenue is on the market for the first time ever. As you will see in the video, the 24-room house—which withstood white flight, as well as the construction (and subsequent demolition) of a public... Read more
Michelle Obama's Stylist Selling River North Salon
By Dennis Rodkin
Michael Flowers, who styled Michelle Obama’s hair from the time she was 18 up to and including the day of her husband’s inauguration, is putting his salon, Van Cleef Hair Studio, up for sale. Flowers and his partner, Daryl Wells, who also runs the studio (at 56 West Huron Street), want to retire to Costa Rica, where they own land, Wells says. Read more
Cubs' Board Member Laura Ricketts Buying House on Wilmette Lakefront
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $6.5 million
Sale Price: Not known
The Property: Laura Ricketts, one of four members of the Ricketts family on the board of the Chicago Cubs, is in the process of buying a $6.5-million lakefront house in Wilmette with her partner, Heidi Grathouse, real-estate sources in Wilmette confirm... Read more
Going Yard in Bucktown
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $1.89 million
The Property: Transforming an old Bucktown hardware store into this single-family home was a complex project, but it had at least one thing going for it. Because the existing building filled its site all the way to the lot lines, the home could be deeper and wider than new construction... Read more
Former Home of R. Kelly Back on the Market at $3.89 Million
By Dennis Rodkin
The converted 19th-century church that was once home to the R&B musician R. Kelly will be put up for sale on June 7th. Extensively renovated in the past 18 months, the place is now a four-bedroom home with a marble-clad fireplace in the living room, a sleek kitchen, a 1,500-square-foot rooftop terrace with an outdoor kitchen, and an elevator. Read more
Foreclosure on the 59th Floor
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $1.310 million
Sale Price: $1.150 million
The Property: Not Chicago’s highest-priced foreclosure, but its highest off the ground, this penthouse on the 59th and 60th floors of Millennium Centre (at 33 West Ontario Street) tops the previous high... Read more
Down by the Riverside
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $784,900
The Property: Six years ago, in a small cluster of homes set in a wooded, U-shaped bend of the Des Plaines River immediately south of Riverside, the carpenter and building contractor Alex Pejsz found the project of his dreams: a handsome 1899 house sorely in need of restoration. Read more
House-Hunting by Bike in Homewood and Oak Park
By Dennis Rodkin
May and June bring prime bicycling weather to Chicago. This year, the Active Transportation Alliance is peddling a new idea: suburban house-hunting by bike. On Sunday, June 13th, in Oak Park and on Saturday, June 19th, in Homewood the alliance will host free bicycle tours of houses for sale... Read more