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List Price: $6.72 million
The Property: The blocks south and southeast of Hinsdale’s downtown are replete with imposing homes of various eras and styles. Set among them is this new English manor, whose brick and timber Tudor façade could pass for a much older home. The time warp continues inside, where the main hall—75 feet long, with wood-framed arches and a series of “umbrella-ceiling” coves (also known as groin vaults)—could have been lifted from a centuries-old church. It connects the formal rooms in the front of the main floor with the informal family spaces in the back.

The first floor has five main rooms, and the second floor has five bedrooms. There is also a 1,600-square-foot third floor that the developers, Kay Builders, have left only partially finished so a buyer could configure it as a live-in relative’s separate apartment (served by the home’s elevator) or as additional family space. A spacious basement, whose layout has only been roughed in, includes a stone-walled wine room.

As you will see in today’s video, the house has carved stone mantels, high ceilings, double kitchen islands, and lots of wood trim. The kitchen cabinetry includes what looks like an oversize armoire with an arched top—it conceals twin refrigerators—and the master bath is filled with curved doors and super-tall storage cabinets.

A small terrace topped by a pergola connects the living and dining rooms, and there is another terrace off the master bedroom on the second floor. Tall, broad windows in the kitchen and large family room frame the big lawn out back, while the tall basement windows provide pretty garden views.

Price Points: No nearby homes have sold recently in the range of this house’s $6.72 million asking price. But according to Bob Kay of Kay Builders, at least three custom homes in the immediate area have been completed or are underway in the over-$6 million range. One of them is right across the back fence of this house; Kay estimates the total investment there as more than $6.5 million. A second home, built by Kay, was completed in 2010 for what he says was more than $6.23 million, and the third home he estimates as having cost at least $6 million.

Listing Agent: Beth Burtt of Brush Hill Realtors; 630-920-0666 or bethburtt@aol.com

UPDATE: A few weeks ago, I noted that Rob Solomon—who bought the landmark Magerstadt House when he came to Chicago in the spring of 2010 to serve as president and chief operating officer of Groupon—had not yet put the house back on the market since leaving the company after less than a year. On June 9th, the house did hit the market, listed at $2.5 million. Solomon and his wife, Jessica, (whom I could not reach for comment) had paid $2.325 million for the house in May 2010. Their agent, Stephen Parker of Metro Pro Realty, says that the Solomons had installed new carpeting and water heaters, but that otherwise the house was unchanged since last year.