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List Price: $1.249 million
The Property: I’m going to level with you—because today’s home has a lot of levels, and we squeezed as many of them as we could into today’s video.
On the outside are a pleasant front terrace, and another, larger one, two floors up off the master bedroom. There's a big rooftop deck, as well as a rear terrace off the kitchen. The same is true inside, where you start on the living floor, go up a few steps to the kitchen level, continue climbing to a level that has two bedrooms—one of them open, like a loft space—and then up one more level to the master suite.
From every one of those levels there are nice views out into the surrounding Lincoln Park neighborhood. That’s from the back of the house, the front of the house, and even along one long, exposed side of the house. The scene outside the wall of windows there can’t change very much, because the tiny parking lot immediately next door is too small to build on. (The larger lot across an alley could someday be developed, but it wouldn’t block most of the ample daylight that wall of windows lets in.)
There are nice contemporary finishes throughout the house, from the marble panels on the walls of the living room to the chrome handrails on the staircase, which match contemporary light fixtures hanging from above. Most rooms have high-gloss polished concrete floors with radiant heat. In the kitchen are espresso-finish cabinetry and graphic zigzag wallpaper. One basement wall is covered in cork.
Those are some fine finishes, but there’s one thing that appears to be unfinished: the master bath. Because there’s no surround for the shower, listing agent Mario Greco told me that sometimes potential buyers are confused and think there’s no shower at all, but in fact, it’s a large bathing room with an inviting openness. And that openness has its complement in next door in the master bedroom. Because it’s on the third floor with windows on two sides, from this room you look out on a pair of new highrises, as well as older buildings and trees—it’s a good view, and you get more of it out on the terrace.
There, you’re right at the treetops with a comfortable place to relax. The rooftop deck is one flight up, but the present homeowners, Lindsey Lee and Zach von Felten, haven’t furnished that one, so satisfying is the master bedroom’s deck. From here, they can look out at all the shopping of North and Clybourn, and beyond that to residential buildings, and then beyond that to the entire city skyline. So this house has a lot of levels, and its view has a lot of layers.
Price Points: The sellers paid $1.07 million for the property in early 2011. Their asking price reflects the significant uptick that the Lincoln Park market has seen this year (as well as a smaller increase last year), Greco says. A nearby condo of about the same square footage sold for $1.1 million earlier this year, he notes, “and it didn’t have the outdoor space or the attached two-car garage that this has. We’re priced above a condo but below a luxury home.”
Listing Agent: Mario Greco of Prudential Rubloff, 773-687-4696 and mgreco@rubloff.com