Fat German cherubs? Check. Open floor plan? Yes. Former nunnery? That too.
A condominium in a former Wilmette convent is going on the market next month for $749,000, Crain’s reported. The two-bedroom has columns and vaulted ceilings and access to a 134-foot balcony that overlooks one of the building’s two large interior courtyards.
“It’s pleasant, kind of a retreat,” owner Marion Walsh, who bought it for $448,500 in 2011 with her husband and is moving to a retirement home, told Crain’s. The condo was once a side aisle of Mallinckrodt College’s chapel.
The 180,000-square-foot building, reserved for people aged 55 and older, was built in 1916 for the Sisters of Christian Charity in 1916. It was designed by Hermann Gaul, the Chicago architect who designed many Catholic churches across the region including Immaculate Conception in Bridgeport, St. Benedict’s in North Center and St. Philomena in Hermosa.
After becoming Mallinckrodt College, the building was sold twice more before developers transformed it into housing.
Walsh and her husband installed a Schonbek chandelier and chose a creamy color scheme for the home to “keep it light.” A room between the formal living area and the primary bedroom, which Walsh used as a sitting room, could house a library, exercise room or music room.
The 288-square-foot primary bedroom has a private bathroom, walk-in closet and an office. The home also has a smaller, second bedroom.
A few miles away, one of two condos in a restored mansion built for a Titanic survivor hit the market for $7.65 million. It has five bedrooms across 6,400 square feet and still has some of the original 1917 design features from David Adler and Henry Dangler.
The full 16,000-square-foot home was built for Emily Ryerson and her three children after they fled the Titanic in a lifeboat while traveling home for the funeral of another son, a Yale student who had been killed in a car accident. Her husband, Arthur Ryerson, was among about 1,500 people who lost their lives.
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[Crain’s] — Victoria Pruitt