$8.1M Home Sells in Lake Geneva

A Chicago private equity executive sold his home near Lake Geneva for $8.1 million, one of the priciest lakefront sales in recent years and a fresh signal that top-of-market demand in southeastern Wisconsin hasn’t cooled.

Mark Tresnowski, co-founder of upstart Orchard Investment Partners and a former managing director at Madison Dearborn Partners, and his wife Rita sold the eight-bedroom, 8,000-square-foot home at 132 Conference Point Drive in Williams Bay on April 22, according to Walworth County records reported by Crain’s. The sale pencils out to about $1,012 per square foot.

The couple paid $4.4 million for the property in 2013, or just $550 per square foot.

The buyers were Robert and Debbie Forbis of Naples, Florida, records show. The Forbises are philanthropists and the founders and owners of Premier Electric, one of Florida’s largest electrical contractors, according to the Florida Physician.

The sale was not publicly listed, and there’s no indication brokers were involved. The lakefront home sits on just over 1.5 acres.

The price wasn’t a record for the village — an $8.28 million sale on Lake Shore Drive in October holds the title — but the deal is part of an upward shift in values around Lake Geneva. Prior to these two transactions, the record price in Williams Bay was $5.6 million, set in 2021 for a home on Wood Street Pier, according to Redfin.

Just across the lake, the market has seen even more eye-popping numbers: a Lake Geneva mansion sold for $21.85 million in August, and billionaire J. Christopher Reyes’ $36 million purchase of the late Richard Driehaus’ estate in 2021 marked the region’s all-time high.

Tresnowski, an attorney by training and former partner at Kirkland & Ellis, spent nearly two decades at Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based buyout firm with roughly $23 billion under management.

He most recently served as a senior adviser there before co-launching Orchard Investment Partners earlier this year. The new firm is focused on secondary-market investments in financial services, health care and other sectors.

The Tresnowskis also own a residence in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, per public records.

— Judah Duke