Irene Pritzker, the former wife of Robert Pritzker—who, with his brother Jay, turned a family fortune into a financial empire best known for its Hyatt hotels and resorts—has sold her 13-room Kenilworth mansion for $2,775,000. A handsome brick and limestone villa roofed in green terra cotta and situated on four-tenths of an acre, it has five bedrooms and a large family room/kitchen addition in the back.
Irene Pritzker bought the house in 1999, six years after she divorced Robert Pritzker (Irene was Robert’s second wife); the price she paid is not listed in public records. The house went on the market last July with an asking price of $3.24 million; it was later reduced to $2.995 million. A deal was struck with a buyer (not yet identified in public records) in mid-January, and the $2.775-million sale closed on March 12th.
The house is a block from New Trier Township High School, the alma mater of Robert and Irene’s daughter, Liesel, the actress who, billed as Liesel Matthews, costarred in the Harrison Ford movie Air Force One. In 2002, when she was 18, Liesel sued her father and other relatives, claiming they had looted her trust funds; her brother, Matthew, later joined the lawsuit.
The issue was resolved in 2005 when the siblings agreed to drop the lawsuit in exchange for a settlement of $450 million each. Neither Irene Pritzker nor Liesel Pritzker could be located for comment. Irene Pritzker’s real-estate agent, Joanne Hudson of the Hudson Company, did not respond to a request for an interview. Irene Pritzker has been an arts patron and is on the board of the American Association for Cancer Research.