Renovated Lake Geneva Home Sells for Double its 2017 Price

A Chicago CEO just cashed out of Lake Geneva’s luxury market.

Kathy Bolhous, who leads Chicago-based packaging company Charter Next Generation, sold her Lake Geneva mansion for $7.6 million, more than $1 million below its original asking price, Crain’s reported.

Bolhous and her husband, Rod, purchased the five-bedroom, 5,350-square-foot home at N2301 Knollwood Drive for $3.3 million in 2017, or about $617 per square foot. It closed Wednesday for over twice as much, about $1,420 per square foot.

Compass agents Janis Hartley and Patti Zurla had the listing. Tricia Martinez of Terra Real Estate repped the buyer, Michael Fieri of Sarasota, Florida. He is the founder and vice chair of Orsini Specialty Pharmacy.

The sellers undertook a two-year “top-down” renovation of the Nantucket-inspired property, which sits on roughly 0.6 acres with 190 feet of lake frontage and a two-slip pier.

The home hit the market last summer at nearly $9 million but was pulled after failing to sell. It returned in February at $8.7 million, followed by a $400,000 price cut in March. The final sale price came in at about 85 percent of the original ask.

Public records show the Bolhouses also own a North Michigan Avenue condo they purchased in 2017 for $3.55 million.

Interest is strong and values are rising for luxury lakefront real estate in southern Wisconsin, particularly from Chicago buyers seeking second homes or vacation properties.

Another home near Lake Geneva sold for $8.1 million in April. That 8,000-square-foot home at 132 Conference Point Drive in Williams Bay sold for $1,012 per square foot. The sellers, Mark Tresnowski, co-founder of Orchard Investment Partners, and his wife Rita, bought the property for $4.4 million or $550 per square foot in 2013.

— Judah Duke