Gilded Age mansion in Lake Geneva fetches $22M in 37% price cut 

A historic Lake Geneva mansion has sold for nearly $22 million, in Wisconsin’s most-expensive home sale since 2022. It was the second-highest price for a home in the resort town’s history.    

Aloha Lodge, a 20,000-square-foot mansion with deep ties to Chicago’s elite, fetched $21.85 million ($1,092 per square foot), Crain’s reported.

The mansion, which sits on 12 acres at 768 South Lake Shore Drive, was sold by the estate of Harold Byron Smith, whose family founded Northern Trust Bank and Illinois Tool Works. He was vice chairman of Illinois Tool Works, and for six years was chair of the Illinois Republican Party. The buyer wasn’t identified.

Aloha Lodge is a well-known sight for those who take boat tours on Lake Geneva, recognizable by its two-story high pillars and extended arms, one of which fronts a swimming pool. 

The property, owned by Smith from 1998 until his death in October 2022, features 10 bedrooms, 13-and-a-half bathrooms and 16,000 square feet of living space. Other features include a three-bedroom guest house, a separate 1,800-square-foot building with a model railroad, a greenhouse, five boats and 368 feet of lake frontage. 

The mansion was designed in 1900 by noted Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw for Tracy and Anna Drake. Tracy Drake and his brother, John, were the sons of a hotelier and developed the iconic Drake Hotel and Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. 

The Drakes named the home Aloha Lodge in honor of their friend, Hawaiian queen Lili’uokalani, who was dethroned in 1895. The Drakes lost the property during the Great Depression, in 1936, leaving behind many furnishings, including their china, which remains in the house today.

Smith’s estate listed Aloha Lodge for $35 million in May of last year, but the price was later reduced to $30 million after an extended period on the market. The sale marked a 62 percent drop from the original asking price. The home was marketed by @properties Christie’s International Real Estate. David Curry of Geneva Lakefront Realty represented the buyer.

This is the most-expensive home sale in Wisconsin since January 2022, when billionaires J. Christoper Reyes and Anna Reyes bought the Lake Geneva estate of the late Richard Driehaus for $36 million.

Other major property transactions in the area include a 12,000-square-foot home at 906 South Lakeshore Drive that fetched $12.7 million in February 2024, and a 12,000-square-foot home on Folly Lane that sold for $9.6 million.  

Similar to the Aloha Lodge, those properties sold for less than their original asking price. 

The price is more than double that of the most-expensive home sale in Chicago this year, a $9.3 million Gold Coast condo, which the co-founder of Chicago Trading sold after a 33 percent price cut.

— Andrew Terrell

Editor’s note: The percentage of the price cut from the original listing has been corrected in the headline of this story.

Read more

Residential

Chicago

Lake Geneva’s “Aloha Lodge” hitting market at $35M

Residential

Chicago

Hardware scion’s estate shaves $5M off Lake Geneva’s Aloha Lodge

Residential

Chicago

Waterfront Lake Geneva mansion sells 8% below ask at $12.7M