Lake Forest luxury market notches priciest sale in 3 years

Retail heir Marshall Field V had listed 9K-sf estate in November

Mansions at 980 N. Green Bay Road and 55 E. Onwentsia Road in Lake Forest, which both sold this month. (Redfin)
Mansions at 980 N. Green Bay Road and 55 E. Onwentsia Road in Lake Forest, which both sold this month. (Redfin)

Luxury buyers are still clamoring for properties in bucolic Lake Forest with two mansions selling this month for a combined $11.5 million.

The pricier of the pair, a 9,100-square-foot estate, was purchased Tuesday for $6.2 million, according to Crain’s. It was the highest price paid for a home in the area in three years.

The seller of the home at 980 N. Green Bay Road was Marshall Field V, retail heir and former owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Daily News. He owned the property for decades, and first listed it in November for $6.75 million. It was designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw and sits on 15 acres.

And earlier this month, Jeff and Chrystal Gannon unloaded their 10,600-square-foot Lake Forest mansion for $5.35 million, Crain’s reported. The closing price is a sharp drop from its January 2019 asking, when the property at 55 E. Onwentsia Road hit the market for $7.9 million. Designed by Phillip Liederbach of Liederbach & Graham, the property is on 3 acres.

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Overall, Chicago-area home sales have been on a months-long tear. Over 12,000 homes sold in April, a figure that even outpaced the area’s pre-pandemic April average. Housing supply is shrinking and median sales are up.
In 2020, Lake Forest saw the biggest percentage increase in home sales over 2019 of all Chicago-area suburbs. Lake Forest had 149 homes sold  — a 69 percent jump from the previous year.

Despite the uptick, not all Lake Forest mansions are getting gobbled up. In late February, the former CEO of General Dynamics and his wife relisted their 13,000-square-foot home for $6.5 million. The five-bedroom, 10-bathroom mansion at 1230 West Summerfield Drive — which first hit the market last June — has not sold.

[Crain’s] — Alexi Friedman