Where Chicago Golf Began

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With its numerous dormers, pillars and chimneys, the house exudes the confident authority of a stately English home. Like many Georgians, “it’s really much more beautiful in the back,” notes Jean Anderson, the Koenig & Strey GMAC agent representing the estate for Schearstone Real Estate Investments. (Anderson says the home is now owned by that firm, but she would not divulge any further details. Lake County Recorder of Deeds documents do not show any change of ownership since the Lederers’ 2000 purchase of the home, but do show the foreclosure by lender American Chartered Bank.)
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The four-acre Bluff’s Edge property is at 620 Lake Road, the southern end of that prestigious street. The parcel was originally part of a much larger estate owned by Charles B. Farwell, who with his brother John was among the first buyers of lots in Lake Forest when it was laid out in 1857. Banker Charles Farwell was an early major donor to Lake Forest College and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a U.S. Senator.
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A brick garden wall and a pair of gate pillars separate the estate from the public road, which is quasi-private because its only use is as a secondary entrance and exit for Forest Park, the town’s beach.
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The Georgian-style house was designed by the firm Rebori, Wentworth, Dewey and McCormick. It has about 10,000 square feet of living space, plus another 2,000 in a separate coachhouse.
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Somewhere on this expansive table land, Chicagoan Charles Blair MacDonald, back from studying at a college in Scotland, laid out an informal seven-hole golf course and demonstrated the game to two friends, Charles B. Farwell and Farwell’s son-in-law, Hobart Chatfield-Taylor (who would later build Bluff’s Edge on the land). The game so delighted the men that they set in motion the construction of the first golf club built west of the Alleghenies, the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton.
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An old garden wall at the edge of a ravine is a remnant of “House in the Woods,” the original home on the property, built in the 1880s or 1890s. The Queen Anne-style house was the home of two unmarried Farwell family women. The garden wall holds an overlook whose view east down the ravine takes in Lake Michigan.
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The entrance to the house is a classic edifice that dwarfs visitors.
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Past a double-doored foyer, visitors enter the grand receiving salon with an oval staircase tracing a two-story bay with views over the grounds. The stone floor and wall paneling are original features of the house. The chandelier is not. “It looks like it came from Home Depot,” Anderson says.
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Original parquetry remains in some rooms of the house.
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The dining room’s framed shelving coves and lower-wall paneling are original, but their finishes may not be. Anderson believes the gold-leaf detail on the ceiling dates back several decades, but can’t say with certainty. The chandelier appears to be a low-cost reproduction.
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The natural-finish wood trim in one of two studies speaks to the country estate style of the 1920s. The chandelier, again, does not.
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Another study or library has more formal and ornate millwork.
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The broad, flat floorplan of the 18-room house creates impressive long lines of sight, which would have created an air of grandeur at parties.
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The living room is immense, at least 30 feet across and 15 feet deep, but relatively unadorned except for the windows and walk-out bays on three sides. Given the grandeur of the rest of the home, it seems likely that much of the original detail of this important room has been removed.
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While nice, the kitchen is “not sufficient for the way you live in a house like this,” Anderson notes. It could be combined with the very large butler’s area next door, as well as some smaller rooms off the back, to create a kitchen/breakfast/family room, and still have space for the butler’s or caterer’s area that a home of this status demands. On the counter are copies of the home’s original blueprints. It was Job No. 255 for the firm Rebori, Wentworth, Dewey & McCormick, built for Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Chatfield-Taylor. (Wayne’s mother, Rose, was Charles Farwell’s daughter.)
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The master suite occupies the west end of the second floor. (Four family bedrooms and a set of former servants’ rooms fill the east end.) An inviting seat bay in the master bedroom used to have a match, but the symmetry was blocked by installation of a large master bath on the south side of the space.
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The master bath, with tub in the former seat bay, “looks very 1980s,” says Anderson. A buyer would most likely opt to re-do it.
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The third floor of the house has a gargantuan family room or rec room, formerly the attic or ballroom, that is daylit by rows of dormers on both sides. “If you’ve got teenagers, you’ll want this attic,” Anderson says.
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A gateway to the western lawn. Along with stripping out wallpaper and refinishing all the wood floors, the investor owners are keeping a landscape crew maintaining the grounds. Although they have had control of Bluff’s Edge for several months with little sign of a buyer, Anderson says they don’t intend to cut the price any further. “They are not at all interested in a fire sale,” she says.

By Dennis Rodkin

December 2, 2009, 8:14 am

Bluff’s Edge is a handsome Georgian mansion built in 1928 on four acres above the south end of Lake Forest’s town beach. In 1892, the grounds were the scene of what is believed to be the first golf game played in Chicago, which led to the founding of the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, the oldest 18-hole golf club in North America. The property also has ties to families and architects who played prominent roles in Chicago and Lake Forest history.

The mansion has stood empty for more than a year. Its last residents, William and Brenda Lederer, paid $6.9 million for the estate in July 2000, the year after William Lederer, an investor, sold the e-commerce site Art.com for $115 million. The couple first put the estate on the market in 2006 with Baird & Warner’s Mona Hellinga; originally marketed at $9.995 million, the house had its price drop by steps through October 2007, when it was listed at $6.995 million.

In July 2009, according to the Lake County Recorder of Deeds, American Chartered Bank started foreclosure proceedings against the Lederers. The house is currently listed at $6.495 million with Jean Anderson of Koenig & Strey GMAC. (Anderson says that the house is now owned by Scherston Real Estate Investments, but she would not divulge any more details about the company or its ownership.) “[The house] was priced too high in the good market,” Anderson says. “Now it’s priced right, but even the rich guys are being careful about buying. The highest price we’ve seen sell in Lake Forest this year is $5.2 million.” (Deal Estate broke the news about that sale, to the widow of filmmaker John Hughes, two weeks ago.)

I could not reach the Lederers for comment. In August, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that William Lederer was working in New York and that the IRS had filed liens against him seeking $12.4 million in back taxes. Now check out the photo tour to learn more about the design and the history of today’s house.

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