Situated in the gated Midwest Club development, the house was custom built with views of a pond out back.

List Price: $3,749,000
Sale Price: $3,125,000
The Property: The 19-room house in Oak Brook that belonged to James and Joann Cantalupo was sold on August 11th.

In April 2004, 60-year-old James Cantalupo died from a heart attack at a McDonald’s convention in Orlando, Florida. An Oak Park native, Cantalupo had worked for McDonald’s from 1974 until he retired in 2002. After Jack Greenberg resigned as the company’s CEO, Cantalupo resumed the post in January 2003. During his tenure, Cantalupo drove a highly praised turnaround of McDonald’s, doing everything from slowing down the pace of new restaurant openings to introducing several healthier menu items. The company’s Oak Brook headquarters is about three miles from this house.

Situated in the gated Midwest Club development, the house was custom built for the couple in 1999 (the amount spent for the land and the house’s construction is not clear in DuPage County records). The residence has five bedrooms, six-plus bathrooms, a three-car garage, and views of a pond out back. The listing sheet, distributed by Shelly Santefort (Joann Cantalupo’s real-estate agent), describes the “palatial mansion” as being in “absolutely mint condition.” Photos accompanying the listing show a two-story foyer with a curving staircase, a study with a beamed ceiling, and a neutral cream-on-cream decorating scheme throughout the house. (Because the house is in a gated community, I was unable to see it in person.)

“It’s absolutely gorgeous inside,” Santefort told me, “with a lot of custom features, antique light fixtures, and a perfect floor plan.” The most distinctive touch, she says, is a pair of tall wrought iron gates salvaged from an old church in Italy that now flank the entrance to the home’s two-story family room.

Joann Cantalupo put the house on the market in February 2008, says Santefort; her father’s Santefort Properties built the house. I could not reach Joann Cantalupo, who now lives on the Gold Coast, for comment.

Price Points: The house initially went on the market listed at $4.999 million. Its eventual sale price—62 percent of the original asking price—was “the highest sale in the Midwest Club in at least three years,” Santefort said.

Listing Agent: Shelly Santefort of Coldwell Banker, 630-251-7790; shelly.santefort@cbexchange.com

Photos courtesy Shelly Santefort Perkowski, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage