List Price: $4.35 million
Sale Price: $3.55 million
The Property: It may look like the successor to some of the great old Gold Coast mansions, but this slender four-story Georgian sits in a much newer neighborhood: the Kinzie Estates section of River North, which until ten years ago was a couple of blocks of defunct warehouses and surface parking lots south of what used to be the Montgomery Ward’s headquarters.
Like many of the new houses and townhouses in the neighborhood this 15-room, 11,000-square-footer, completed in 2005, is classically styled. It has an elegant brick façade, Palladian windows, and limestone trim (check out the bunting effect of the limestone beneath the third-floor windows). Inside, the vintage touches include the beamed ceiling in the large foyer and a pair of interior arches opening into the living room. There are six bedrooms, seven-plus baths, a lavish kitchen designed by DiGiulio, terraces at the rear of the second, third, and fourth levels, and, at the top of the house, a deck behind the mansard roof. “[The deck] has a pergola, an irrigation system, custom lighting, and great city views,” says the seller’s agent, Thomas Gorman.
About a block away from this house is the townhouse development where the Miami Heat forward and Chicago native Antoine Walker lived in July 2007, when he and a relative were robbed there. At the time, Walker said he would sell his home because he no longer felt safe there, but there is no indication in public records that his property has changed hands since then.
Price Points: Donna More, an attorney in the gaming industry—in 1990 she was the first chief legal counsel of the then-new Illinois Gaming Board—paid $3,556,500 for this house in January 2005, according to public records. That’s $6,500 more than she received in the sale of the house, which closed March 16th. More, who could not be reached for comment, originally listed the house for sale at $5.3 million in April 2007. Gorman, who took over the listing in September 2008, dropped the price to $4.35 million. He would not comment on whether More had spent anything to upgrade the house after she moved in, saying only that “it was a smart seller and a smart buyer.”
Listing Agent: Thomas Gorman of Baird & Warner, 312-640-7010