Lakefront Winnetka Mansion Fetches $31M in New Record

A nearly 100-year-old Winnetka mansion sold for a record $31.3 million, the highest Chicagoland home resale price ever.

The 13,894-square-foot home sits on 2.3 acres of Lake Michigan shoreline and was originally built in a French Renaissance Revival-style.

It’s now known as Windsor House because the mansion was originally owned by Popular Mechanics magazine publisher Henry H. Windsor Jr. and Louise Hunter Windsor. It was built in 1928 and designed by architect Ernest Mayo.

The seller on the recent deal was retired investment banker Muneer Satter, formerly of Goldman Sachs, and his wife Kristen Hertel. They first purchased the property in 2002 for $9.5 million, and added an adjacent property in 2013 for $4.1 million, the Chicago Tribune reported. The asking price was over $2,500 per square foot. The actual sale price was around $2,253 per square foot.

They spent far more on improvements and renovation during their tenure with the property. Satter and Hertel spent between $65 million and $72 million to create the estate, located at 419 Sheridan Road, which now includes 223 feet of private beachfront, a boathouse and an infinity pool. They first listed the property in August 2024. Jena Radnay of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate was the listing agent.

Satter and Hertel first listed the 22-room property for $35 million in an agent’s-only network. The buyer was a land trust and public records do not reveal any benefactor.

Bond trader Keith Rudman, who sold the estate to the couple in 2002, purchased it in 1993 for $2.8 million.

This sale surpasses previous high-priced real estate transactions in the Chicago area, which typically involved the assembly of multiple properties rather than a single residential resale of this magnitude. For example, businessman Justin Ishbia spent $33.7 million to acquire three lakefront homes in Winnetka for a new mansion now under construction, and Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin spent $58.8 million in separate transactions for unfinished units on the top four floors of 9 West Walton Street, a Chicago condo building. Filmmaker George Lucas and Mellody Hobson also combined penthouses in a Chicago tower for an estimated total cost of $33.5 million.

But no single residential property has resold in Chicagoland for more than $22 million.

Another historic lakefront mansion in Kenilworth, also listed by Radnay for that North Shore suburb’s record price of $15 million, is currently under contract for an undisclosed price.

— Eric Weilbacher