List Price: $1.85 million
Sale Price: $1.65 million
The Property: Built in 1940, when Northbrook was a sleepy little village, this genteel 12-room house evokes that simpler era with its stone gateposts and tall trees, its large screened sunroom, its swimming pool and broad lawn. But thanks to a successful kitchen renovation, a big family room with vaulted ceilings, a splashy master bath, and high-end replacement windows, the place also has a contemporary feel. “It’s not the charming house you go into and it’s rickety inside,” says Nancy Gibson, who represented the sellers. “The way I keep describing this one is that it’s romantic.”

The house stands on a wooded 1.2-acre lot in a part of Northbrook that retains its country feel even with the many bloated teardowns crowding the edges of their lots. It has five bedrooms, five baths, and two fireplaces. The seller, Phillip Barnett, was a senior vice-president at Exelon, the Chicago-based power company, who moved to Pennsylvania after being appointed chief financial officer of PECO, Exelon’s Philadelphia subsidiary, in September 2007. The buyer is not yet identified in public records.

Price Points: Barnett had bought the house in February 2006 for $1.8 million. He initially listed it for sale in September, asking $1.95 million. The price later dropped to $1.85 million. In mid-February, Gibson says, “we were on the verge of cutting it again when someone came in to buy.” The $1.65-million sale closed on March 4th. The 8.3 percent loss Barnett took on the sale might come back to him on the buy side because of the cut-rate prices that prevail in the real-estate market—and because houses are less expensive in Philadelphia than they are here.

Listing Agent: Nancy Gibson of Coldwell Banker, (847) 272-9880