Massive Lake Forest Mansion Pulled Off Market Unsold

Not all that glitters along suburban Chicago’s North Shore lakefront market has takers.

A Lake Forest mansion, once the priciest listing in the Chicagoland region at $27.5 million, was pulled from the market on Tuesday after sitting unsold for almost two years, despite steep price cuts. The listing points to a scenario in the North Shore residential region where the market favors sellers, but homes in the extreme upper tier have had slower success rates and lengthier listing periods.

The six-bedroom, nine-bathroom estate at 595 Circle Lane in Lake Forest debuted in September 2024 as a 5.3-acre Italianate home with access to 570 feet of Lake Michigan shoreline. It had been on and off the market a few times since then, but suffered two major price cuts — one in January when the seller slashed the price by $2.5 million to $25 million, and another in May when the house was back on the market for a total of $17 million, with a vacant parcel of adjacent land marketed separately for $5 million, according to pricing data on public listing sites. Previously, the vacant land was marketed together with the main home property.

On Monday, the Lake Forest estate was split into two lots and marketed as pocket listings on Zillow.

By Tuesday, however, both lots that were being advertised became “off-market.” A person familiar with the property confirmed to The Real Deal that the listing was entirely pulled and was not being marketed privately either. It is not immediately clear why. Ann Lyon, the @properties Christie’s International agent representing the seller, Terry Rozdolsky, declined to comment.

An iconic mansion

The 15,000-square-foot mansion, completed in 2019, includes amenities like a protected cove beach, two private boat launches, a boathouse, pool and spa, and garage space for 22 cars. The most striking feature is a grand formal staircase that descends from the mansion to the lake — the only surviving vestige of the legendary Villa Turicum estate that once dominated the area.

Rozdolsky, the homeowner and Lake Forest entrepreneur, commissioned the facelift. He acquired the site in 2010 for $4.5 million, according to Lake County public records. He is the founder of Lake Forest-based Harbortown Industries, a wholesale supplier of picture frames for retailers like Walmart and Target.

The property came onto the market after Lisa and Terry Rozdolsky divorced in 2024 and the latter retained ownership of the Lake Forest home. During the contentious divorce proceedings, the Lake Forest property, which he retained, was valued at a little more than $16 million, according to a 2024 appellate court ruling, though it’s unclear if that includes only the main house or the mansion together with the land parcel.

The Circle Lane property holds a connection to the historic estate once owned by Harold McCormick, son of International Harvester founder Cyrus McCormick, and Edith Rockefeller McCormick, daughter of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. The Circle Lane property’s staircase down the lake bluff is the remnant of Villa Turicum, which was a 269-acre estate including the McCormick couple’s 44-room mansion designed by renowned architect Charles Platt on lush landscaped grounds.

The McCormicks divorced in 1921, and their mansion was demolished in 1959. Developers have since parceled out the site, with multiple homes like Rozdolsky’s built on the grounds.