Lincoln Park is setting a new bar for luxury sales in Chicago as a Dickens Avenue home sold for more than $14 million less than a month after hitting the public market.
The 15,000-square-foot mansion at 400 West Dickens spent a little over a month on an agents-only private listing network before it listed publicly last month at $15 million, priced just below the nearby North Burling Street estate that recently ranked as Chicago’s priciest ever single-family home sale when it changed hands this summer.
Just a week later after hitting the market, the home was marked as “contingent” on public listing sites and recently sold for a whopping $14.25 million, or $950 per square foot.
The home’s $15 million list price made it the second priciest listing in the city, just behind a Park Tower penthouse owned by billionaire Ken Griffin listed at $15.75 million.
Its owners’ success in selling the home for just five percent less than that list price shows there is room in the market for top-dollar asks like these, particularly in neighborhoods like Lincoln Park.
While the Dickens Avenue home was purchased through an LLC that obscures the identity of the buyer, retired Chicago Trading Company executive Paul Kepes and his wife Monica previously disclosed they were the owners and spent $20 million to buy the land and build the property.
The sellers were represented by Tim Salm and Ryan Preuett of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty. Susan Miner of Premiere Relocation represented the buyers, who aren’t yet documented in public records. The listing agents declined to comment and Miner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The loss the sellers took is less severe than the more than $50 million hit that Richard Parrillo and his wife, Michaela, took on the record-setting deal at 1932 North Burling this summer. They spent $65 million to build that home, and had previously set its listing price at $50 million before selling it for a little more than $15 million. The losses reflect the risk of custom building super high-end homes in Chicago, where the luxury market is more limited than other major cities such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles.
Yet unlike the Burling Street home, which sat on the market for years and endured several massive price cuts to its ask before finally landing a deal, the Kepes were quick to make a deal. Salm also brokered the Burling Street transaction.
The identity of the buyers isn’t yet clear as the transaction has not yet been publicly recorded.
The seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom Dickens Avenue mansion was designed by Kathryn Quinn Architects, a boutique, Chicago-based architectural firm, and built by Fraser Homes in 2014. The property has five different outdoor spaces including 3,880 square feet of private terraces and decks, a basketball area, water feature and vegetable garden.
Its tax bill for 2022 was $150,309, according to listing data.
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Residential
Chicago
New Lincoln Park listing takes center stage with $15M asking price