Lakefront Glencoe Mansion’s Price Chopped 14% to $12M

A Glencoe mansion on Lake Michigan is back on the market after a 14 percent price chop took it down to $12 million, one of several homes in the North Shore suburb seeking eight figures.

The home at 595 Longwood Avenue was previously marketed on an agents-only network for $13.8 million in September. The property, which was recently renovated, came back on the market this week at just under $12 million.

Laura Rubin Dresner, a broker with Baird & Warner, is now representing the sellers, David Kalt and his wife, Susan, who paid $5.95 million for the house in 2005. They previously listed the home with Gloria Matlin of Compass.

Rubin Dresner said the home is built in a way that the main level operates almost as a single-story ranch. She said she evaluated comparable listings and sales in the area and nearby Winnetka to come to the new price. The previous price reflected how much the owners had invested in the property, a common tactic at the upper end of the market, she said.

”A lot of times people make decisions on this price based on what they have in it and it’s certainly a place to start, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to value,” Rubin Dresner said. “And I went through to see what else was on the market in Glencoe and would also go to Winnetka which has some good comps, and I felt that we needed to be sub $12 million.” 

The most similar home, the 1936-built estate of a Pabst Brewing Company executive, is also on the market in Glencoe and asking $12 million.

Rubin Dresner said that it’s common for clients who own homes worth more than $4 million in Chicago to have secondary residences in other cities, where real estate values are vastly different.

“When they’re in the $4-plus million range in Chicago they generally have homes in Miami, New York, California, you pick it, one of those three,” she said. “So the prices in other cities are so much stronger than what I see in Illinois.”

Price cuts on elaborate North Shore estates are becoming common, where a slowing market and a dearth of comparable homes make pricing a challenge.

The Pabst estate also underwent an even steeper slide. Previously listed for $18 million, the home has been on and off and market since early 2021. Early last year the home was cut to $16 million before it was removed from the market for the majority of last year.

The total trim since its initial listing amounts to a 33 percent chop, and follows several big price cuts on Chicago-area luxury homes. Chicago’s most expensive listing, a massive mansion in Lincoln Park, underwent a $15 million chop down to $30 million earlier this year.

The Longwood Avenue home was updated in 2007 and the landscaping has been reconfigured to create a courtyard in the front of the home and an infinity pool overlooking Lake Michigan in the back of the property as well as frontage on the lake. Built in 1970 on a nearly two-acre lot, the contemporary-style home has seven bedrooms and five full bathrooms.