Chicagoland’s luxury real estate market is reaching new peaks.
Multiple billionaires have now assembled North Shore beachfront estates consisting of multiple homes to extend private shorelines along Lake Michigan.
Eric Lefkofsky, the co-founder of Groupon and investor in a handful of other unicorn companies, was the latest member of the 10-figure net worth club to make his footprint even bigger than his already record-setting property on the waterfront.
While his plans for the Glencoe home he just bought from his late former neighbor for $8.3 million aren’t yet clear, it adds a substantial chunk of land to his sprawling Glade Road mansion that he bought for $19.5 million back in 2014, the highest price ever paid for a Chicago-area home at the time and one seldom surpassed since.
Yet surpassed it was — by a longshot — last month in Winnetka, when a still unidentified buyer plunked down over $31 million for a former Goldman Sachs executive’s property to crush the record price for a single-family home in the Chicago area.
Those deals come on the heels of billionaire Justin Ishbia paying nearly $40 million to buy an assemblage of homes on Winnetka’s lakefront so he could tear them down to build a 68,000-square-foot house. The new estate is under construction, at a total cost of at least $77 million including the land.
While the Ishbia deal, and perhaps Lefkofsky’s, are about gaining access to what could be considered blank canvases for development, there’s still a market for historic properties on the North Shore. That came clear with the $11 million sale of a Lake Forest mansion once owned by members of the Armour meatpacking family after it was built in 1912 for John T. Pirie, president of Carson Pirie Scott & Co.
Are the upper reaches of the North Shore catching up to high-end markets on the nation’s coasts? The Chicago metro isn’t at Manhattan or Westside L.A. levels, but its luxury scene fits with Sunbelt hotspots Dallas and Miami, where bigger-ticket deals for waterfront land assemblage have been a force in the market for years.
Only time will tell, but this week prolonged a strong stretch for Chicago’s luxury market across various neighborhoods, property types, conditions and price points.
There were 15 deals at $4 million-plus, according to online listing services. That number is probably a little higher, as sales sometimes happen off market and aren’t recorded in public records until later.
Indeed, deals over the $4 million local luxury line ranged from the North Shore to an increasingly well-heeled southwestern Michigan vacation town, and from downtown to the western ‘burbs, with a stop in Lincoln Park for good measure.
In the raw: Unfinished West Loop penthouse brings $5.3M
An unfinished penthouse in the West Loop sold for $5.25 million on Sept. 25, leaving the new owners with a significant build-out project before they can move in.
The 5,200-square-foot condo is a raw “shell space” on the top floor of the 16-story Embry West Loop tower at 21 North May Street. Building out the space will likely cost more than $1 million.
The buyers, who were not identified, were represented by Julie Busby of Compass. Tim Sheahan and Mark Icuss, also with Compass, represented the developer, Sulo Development.
The sale marks a full sell-out for all 58 units in the Embry building. While a high price for the neighborhood, it is not the building’s priciest unit. A penthouse on the 15th floor sold for $7 million in 2023.
Sulo is also the developer behind Hayden, an eight-story, 28-unit condo building at 1109 West Washington Boulevard. It also proposed a three-building, 243-condo project last year at 1325 West Fulton Street.
Ticket to South Haven hideout costs $4M
On the other end of Lake Michigan in the getaway town of South Haven, Michigan, a sleek modern lakehouse sold for $4 million on Sept. 1. The house has a contemporary, angular design with industrial black siding and large glass windows, draped by a curved roof.
The 5,205 square-foot lakefront house with 5 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms is only the fourth house in South Haven to sell for $4 million or more in recent years. It came fully furnished, minus some items reserved by the owner.
The house was constructed and put up for sale by Anthony Penrose, MLive reported last year. Property records list the buyer as a trust connected to Allison Kouba.
Andy Klavins of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Michigan Real Estate represented the seller, and Tammy Kerr with Better Homes and Gardens Connections represented the buyer.
Hinsdale mansion pushes boundary of western suburban market at $5.9M
A Hinsdale mansion sold for $5.9 million on Sept. 11, securing the highest sale price in the wealthy western suburb in more than a year. The deal for the home at 818 South Elm Street closed in a private transaction after it was initially listed for $7.3 million last year, representing a nearly 20 percent price cut.
The seven-bedroom, 16,000-square-foot home sits on a 1.27-acre lot. It was publicly listed in August 2024 before being removed from the market that December. The sale makes it the priciest non-lakefront suburban home to sell in Chicagoland so far this year, aside from a unique Barrington property featured in the TV show “Empire.”
Coldwell Banker’s Dawn McKenna and Lauren Walz represented the seller on the deal, and Alexandra Shaban of Jameson Sotheby’s represented the buyer. The seller couldn’t be identified in public records, and information on the buyer was not immediately available.
While it set a high mark for the year, the property is not the most expensive Hinsdale sale on record. Two homes have fetched prices above $7 million in Hinsdale: A 17,600 square-foot mansion sold for a record $7.7 million in 2021, and an off-market sale brought in $7.5 million in 2022.
Kenilworth mansion found buyer after four years
After four years on the market and major price cuts, a Kenilworth mansion sold for $6.8 million on Sept. 11, one of the most expensive sales in the village’s history.
The home was last owned by the late Yadelle and Robert Sklare, and their family managed the sale. The long time on the market was in part because the family was in no rush to sell the house, listing agent Nancy Nugent of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty said.
It first hit the private market in 2021 asking $14 million. In 2022, it went public, keeping the $14 million ask. The price dropped five times before its last listing price of $7.7 million in September 2024.
The buyers haven’t been identified, but Nugent said they plan to tear down the house and build a new one on the lakefront property.
Commercial roundup
The big commercial real estate news of the week pointed to signs of life in some long-fallow sites eyed for megadevelopments.
Developer Related Midwest, Clayco and a platoon of other partners broke ground on the multi-billion dollar quantum computing facility set to replace the former South Works steel site on Chicago’s South Side. Blue Owl’s real estate division that specializes in sale-leaseback transactions was revealed to be involved in financing the land acquisition, as it paid around $75 million to U.S. Steel for the land and subsequently sold a $58 million ground lease deal to the development team led by Related.
And on the North Side, developer Jim Letchinger’s JDL and Kayne Anderson officially closed on an approximately $84 million acquisition of the northern portion of the former Lincoln Yards site. The deal unlocks a plan focused on residential development, under a new name for the property: Foundry Park. The site’s former developer Sterling Bay and investment partner Lone Star Funds lost the land to their lender Bank OZK after a $125 million default, but Sterling Bay and J.P. Morgan Asset Management have retained control of the southern portion of the property that was once set to be turned into a $6 billion campus with an emphasis on commercial buildings.