“Barbie museum” home sells for Will County record $5.25M

Barbie’s Chicago-area dream house fetched $5.25 million, an area record.

The Homer Glen mansion, which has a Barbie doll museum, palm trees flown in annually from Florida and the state’s largest residential pool, was the priciest Will County sale, Crain’s reported. It’s the first residential property in the southwestern Chicago suburb to sell for more than $5 million.

Previously, the highest prices belonged to two Naperville homes — one that sold for $4.95 million in 2008 and another that sold for $4.75 million in 2020.

The 15,000-square-foot home sits on 4.5 acres on 167th Street, about 40 miles from downtown Chicago. The home has a fountain court with a triple-arched entry and cut-stone walls.

Inside, chandeliers are in multiple rooms, including two in the kitchen, one in the primary bedroom and another in the two-story primary bathroom, which also has a jacuzzi and Greek columns.

The basement leads to the back yard and swimming pool, which was inspired by parts of the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. The listing called it the biggest home pool in the state of Illinois.

The home, which has a movie theater, bar, spa and professional gym, also has a pink-walled gallery in the basement where the previous owner displayed a Barbie doll collection that numbered in the hundreds.

While the buyers don’t have a Barbie collection of their own, Christine Wilczek, who represented the property, said they chose the house because “it feels like a vacation house all the time.”

The sellers were Bill and Doreen Shaheen, according to Will County records. The couple paid $750,000 for the land in 2006 and finished the house and 20-car garage in 2012.

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— Victoria Pruitt