Luxury home builder cuts ask on Highland Park residence by $800K

A luxury home builder is cutting the price on his own Highland Park home after eight months on the market.

Keith Jacobs, a fourth generation home builder and owner of the Jacobs Companies, is selling his residence in Highland Park for $5.1 million. Jacobs lowered the price from $5.9 million, making this the second cut at a 21 percent drop from when it first listed in April 2022 for $6.5 million.

Built in 2006, the home is a rarity in the Chicago area, spanning 17,000-square feet with eight bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. Other amenities include a commercial kitchen with a walk-in fridge, conservatory, a five-car garage, five fireplaces with hand-carved stone, a pool, home gym and an elevator.

“Obviously it was a labor of love because being in the building business and seeing so much over the years — I’ve been in my whole life — so we took everything that we do and really put it into this spectacular home,” he said.

Rafael Murillo, a broker with Compass Real Estate, is representing the house.

Because of the home’s size and customization, it’s been a challenge to find comparable properties for pricing purposes, Jacobs said, though he claimed it would be impossible to build the same house in a similar lot on the North Shore with the same proximity to Lake Michigan for less than double the asking price.

Jacobs and his wife plan to stay in the Chicago area after the sale, he said.

The home is one of several luxury properties that have taken price cuts in the past year, as the market cools and prices in Chicago’s luxury sect of the market have softened. Just north of Highland Park, in Lake Forest, a 1934-built mansion designed by noted brother-sister architects David Adler and Frances Adler Elkins had more than $1 million chopped off its listing price to take it down to $8.9 million when it was put back onto the market earlier this month.

Within Chicago proper along the Gold Coast, a mansion on the 1400 block of historic Astor Street is under contract after four years of dancing between on and off the market and six price cuts from its initial listing, amounting to a 55 percent reduction.

And in Lincoln Park, a home that was the residence of Ken Griffin’s ex-wife investor Anne Dias trimmed $1.7 million, or 18 percent, from its asking price, dropping the home to $7.8 million from $9.5 million.