Cal Akin Revealed as Buyer of Lake Forest Chicago Mansion

The mystery buyer of one of the Chicago area’s priciest home sales this year stepped into the light — and he’s planning a careful refresh of a North Shore landmark.

Cal Akin, a Brookfield, Wisconsin-based multifamily developer, paid $11 million in October for an eight-bedroom, 11,787-square-foot Georgian-style mansion on nearly 9 acres at 930 East Rosemary Road in Lake Forest, the Chicago Tribune reported. The deal equates to $933 per square foot and ranks as the seventh-highest-priced home sale in the region so far this year, trailing only a pair of $30 million-plus Winnetka trades and a handful of other North Shore megadeals.

The mansion includes nine bathrooms, seven fireplaces, a conservatory, coach house, elevator access to all four levels and a dramatic bifurcated staircase. The Krehbiel family listed the estate in August 2024 for just under $15 million, making the final $11 million price tag about 27 percent off the asking price. Akin ultimately bought it through an Illinois trust tied to a Delaware entity that masked his identity, according to the Tribune. The property spans five parcels with a combined 2024 tax bill of about $126,000.

The estate, known as Camp Rosemary, sits just southeast of Lake Forest College and spans 8.8 acres assembled over decades. Akin already received permission from city officials to begin limited interior demolition to assess the scope of renovations and hired Libertyville-based Landmark Luxury Group, led by Zoran Mijatovic, as general contractor. He is also working with what he described to city officials as a “celebrated U.K. garden designer” to enhance the property’s extensive grounds.

Akin wrote in a Nov. 25 email to city officials that he intends to preserve and elevate the estate’s landscaping.

The mansion was built in the early 1900s for retail magnate John T. Pirie Sr. and designed by noted architect Benjamin Marshall. Its original gardens were laid out in the 1920s by prominent landscape architect Rose Standish Nichols. Over the decades, the home passed through a roster of prominent owners, including Laurance H. Armour Jr. of the Armour meatpacking family.

The most recent longtime owner, the late Kennetha Love “Posy” Krehbiel, held the estate for 34 years. She and her then-husband, former Molex co-Chairman John H. Krehbiel Jr., bought the property in 1988 for nearly $2 million, when it totaled less than 5 acres.

In the 1990s, they expanded the grounds by acquiring adjacent parcels and added a substantial expansion in 1996 designed by architect Thomas Beeby, along with a pool house and guesthouse. Today, the gardens feature 21 distinct outdoor “rooms,” bent grass lawns, hedges, manicured trees and seasonal beds.

— Eric Weilbacher