Late Kraft, Quaker CEO’s Home Sells for $6.3M

A Lake Forest home owned by the late Robert Morrison, former CEO of Kraft Foods and Quaker Oats, sold Tuesday for nearly $6.3 million.

The 7,300-square-foot house at 745 East Woodland Road has five bedrooms and nine bathrooms and sits on a 1.24-acre lot a short walk from Lake Michigan, according to listing information. The house sold for $857 per square foot, $250,000 short of its $6.5 million asking price.

Mona Hellinga of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, who represented the seller, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The buyer’s agent is not publicly available. Listing websites only show the agent was a “non member” of the Multiple Listing Service. Property records that could indicate the buyer are not yet available.

Morrison was CEO of Kraft Foods from 1994 to 1997. He then became CEO of Quaker Oats from 1997 until the company merged with PepsiCo. He was vice chairman of PepsiCo until his retirement in 2003. He was briefly interim CEO of 3M in 2005. He died in January at 83.

Morrison and his wife, Susan, purchased the home in 2020 for $2.9 million, from the estate of Nancy Hughes, the wife of filmmaker John Hughes, who died in 2019. Hughes paid $5.2 million for the home in 2009.

The English Country estate was built in 2006 and remodeled between 2022 and 2024, the listing says, with Melichar Architects handling both the original design and renovations. The home features a dining room that opens to an outdoor terrace, a primary suite with two spa-like bathrooms, as well as a lower level with a bar, recreation rooms and a media room.

The private pathway to the home includes a bridge spanning a ravine, leading to a driveway and a three-and-a-half car garage.

The price tag makes it the second-most expensive home to sell in the wealthy North Shore suburb of Lake Forest so far this year, after the $8.3 million sale of a lakefront home on Bluffs Edge Drive in March. Only one other home has sold for more in the last two years, a nearly nine-acre estate on East Rosemary Road with ornate gardens that sold for $11 million in October.

Lake Forest is also the site of the Chicago area’s most expensive listing. The seller of a 15,000-square-foot lakefront home on Circle Lane is asking $25 million. The asking price for the Italianate mansion was originally $27.5 million when it was listed in September 2024.