Bertha Palmer’s Chicago Mansion Lists for $8 Million

A historic Gold Coast mansion is stepping back into the spotlight.

One of the neighborhood’s most opulent single-family homes, built by famed “Queen of Chicago” socialite Bertha Palmer in the 1880s, has hit the market for $7.9 million, Crain’s reported. The price is $1,050 per square foot.

The seven-bedroom limestone mansion at 79 East Cedar Street spans 7,500 square feet across six levels, with elaborate interiors restored over the past 25 years by owners Sarmed and Elizabeth Elias. It offers lake views, a rooftop conservatory and a slice of the city’s architectural legacy.

Mia Wilkinson of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago has the listing.

The Sarmed Elias, an orthopedic surgeon, bought the home in the late 1990s and undertook a full-scale conversion from its previous use as a six-unit rental. He died in 2023.

The home features Moorish arches, a curved three-story staircase, carved stone fireplaces and a glass-domed rooftop conservatory with views of Lake Michigan.

Palmer, who also helped design the Palmer House Hotel and co-managed the world’s largest Impressionist art collection at the time, built several Gold Coast properties but is best known for her family’s now-demolished mansion on Lake Shore Drive.

If it sells near the asking price, it would mark the highest-priced single-family home sale in the Gold Coast since 2017, when Ann Lurie sold her Dearborn Street mansion for $12 million to the Latin School of Chicago.

Standalone houses in the neighborhood haven’t commanded eight-figure prices in recent years, with most recent deals landing between $4 million and $7 million, even for fully renovated 19th-century homes.

By contrast, nearby condos continue to push the top of the luxury market. A condo two blocks away, at 4 East Elm Street, sold in March for $10.1 million, the highest home sale price in Chicago so far this year. Single-family listings are picking up; Pete’s Fresh Market founder Jimmy Dremonas is selling a 13,400-square-foot mansion at 915 North Dearborn for $18.5 million.

— Judah Duke