Price: $2.3 million
The sellers of two side-by side-penthouse units at a vintage Lake View apartment house have put their heads (and brokers) together in a deft marketing move. With one space listed for a year and the other returning to market after a botched sale, buyers can now approach the condos as separate or combined. Unit 15AB is 3,300 square feet with four bedrooms and three baths; unit 15CD is 4,000 square feet with three bedrooms and four baths; and they are asking $1,199,000 and $1,125,000 respectively, or $2,324,000 combined.
“All a buyer has to do is tear out an east-west wall tracing the dining room and office,” says Baird & Warner’s Kimberly Gleeson, listing agent for the smaller unit. “Whatever price is paid will be split between the sellers based on a negotiated formula.” Unit 15AB, the north penthouse at Oakdale Towers, embraces its original 1927 architectural finishes with new classical indulgences like the dining room’s Murano red glass chandelier and sconces, a library with knotty pine paneling, and updated marble bathrooms. Crown and picture moldings, hardwood floors, a 25-foot-long gallery, and the living room’s elaborate stone fireplace are restored originals. This was the space the building’s architect James Edwin Quinn chose for himself because of its views, so it’s appropriate that there’s been minimal tampering.
Unit 15CD is the fun half of the penthouse level. A recent redesign introduced mosaic and marble bathrooms, a glass enclosed wood-paneled wine room, a wet bar, and two fireplaces. While larger, it is priced slightly lower because of time on the market and a bit of redundancy due to a prior combination of units—its asking price has dipped $125,000 since listing in June 2014, now $142,000 below its 2006 sales price.
The sellers of 15AB, Sal Cianciolo and Jamie Poklop, have lived here since 2000. They are upsizing to Evanston, where Poklop is from. “We’ve loved it here, but are ready to try a house,” says Cianciolo. “This place is such a great value. If you were to take our unit and drop it in the Palmolive [Building], it would be three times the price.” That’s no exaggeration. One for-sale unit at the Palmolive with Allesandra Branca interiors is asking $2.75 million for almost the same square footage as Cianciolo and Poklop’s condo; and another Nate Berkus-designed spot is asking almost exactly three times the combined price of units 15AB and CD with 30 percent less space. At the iconic co-ops 999 North Lake Shore Drive and 179 East Lake Shore Drive, your money buys about half what it does at Lake View’s comparable vintage stock.
Jack Quill of @properties has the listing for unit 15CD. Click through for photos.