Category: Crains

Magazine-worthy living in an Art Deco landmark

Posted on February 10, 2021 by in Chicago Luxury Real Estate, Crains, Gold Coast

On the 12th floor of the Palmolive Building, this condo’s interior—by two of the top names in Chicago architecture and design—has the same subtle elegance as the building’s 1920s architecture.

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Moving to Chicago from San Francisco a few years ago, Steven Aiello looked at “probably 30 to 40 condos from South Michigan Avenue to Lincoln Park until I found the exceptional one, this one.

”The condo, on the 12th floor of the Palmolive Building, an Art Deco landmark built in 1929 on North Michigan Avenue, was “sophisticated,” Aiello said. “It’s warm and stylish.”

That was thanks to architectural design by Booth Hansen two decades ago when the longtime office building went residential, and to the more recent work on the interior of this condo by Soucie Horner.

With Deco-inspired layers of trim banding the ceiling, light fixtures that evoke the same era, and a large living room, the condo had a refinement that stood out, Aiello said.

“The others were just plaster and drywall boxes if you took away the furniture,” Aiello said.

Aiello, who came to Chicago for a job as chief development officer at a commercial real estate firm, has now moved again, taking on the role of chief operating officer of a hospitality firm based in Florida. He’ll put the 3,000-square-foot three-bedroom Palmolive Building condo on the market Feb. 10, priced at a little below $2.48 million.

Represented by Phil Skowron of @properties, the condo comes with two parking spaces.

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The living room, 33 feet long, naturally breaks into two nodes at the columns seen at the right in this photo. On the left is “a nice sitting room for a few people to talk,” Aiello said, and on the right, “it’s more formal,” a place for gathering before dinner.

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The condo has east, west, and north exposures. The long side of the living room is its north side, with views out the windows of the gracious façade of the Drake Hotel, and beyond to Lake Shore Drive and the north lakefront.

The Palmolive is two blocks from Oak Street Beach and the lakefront path. Shopping and dining are abundant in the neighborhood.

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The dining room faces west, where diners can see the sunset’s glow.

All the windows have recessed blinds concealed in the window works that can be operated electronically, and decorative blinds, seen partially deployed here. All the window fabrics throughout the condo are new since he moved in, Aiello said. All were selected by Soucie Horner. The firm did the original design for the previous owner, and Aiello brought them back to make his changes.

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The kitchen is entirely new, completed in the summer of 2020. While the layout of the space didn’t change, all the surfaces did, including cabinetry, appliances, and the quartzite countertops that replaced a darker stone.

At the far end of the room, a television is inset into the backsplash. Aiello worked with his contractor, Soffer Construction, to ensure that it fits flat into the backsplash for a seamless look. The unit is spring-mounted so it can pop out for repairs.

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Aiello uses the third bedroom as a den. He replaced a pair of swing doors with a single opening and pocket doors. The wallcovering is fabric.

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A bold wallpaper print lines the walls of a room at the entrance to the main bedroom suite. It’s large enough to be furnished with a desk or chairs.

The door at left leads down a hallway to the two walk-in closets, the bath, and the bedroom. It gives the bedroom a feeling of remove from the rest of the home.

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In the main bedroom, one wall is padded with fabric and supports a pair of pendant lamps.

While the dining room had two types of window coverings, here there are three, including blackout shades.

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The materials in the main bathroom were darker when Aiello bought the condo. He brought in lighter replacements all around.

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The former owners had bright colors and bunk beds in the second bedroom. Aiello had it redone with versions of the materials that were already in the main bedroom.

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In the powder room is another large-print wallpaper selected by Soucie Horner. The toilets in the condo, four of them, are all touchless models, Aiello said.

The Palmolive Building was a superb place to live for his few years in Chicago, Aiello said. Not only is the building, originally designed by Holabird & Root, beautiful inside and out, he said, but “it’s probably the best place to live in an urban center. My experience in Chicago was nothing but wonderful.”

Lincoln Park mansion sells for city’s highest price since mid-2018

Posted on December 30, 2020 by in Chicago Luxury Real Estate, Crains

The Howe Street property went for $11.9 million, the most anyone has paid for a home here since another mansion two blocks away went for the same price 29 months ago.

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A Lincoln Park mansion sold this morning for $11.9 million, the highest sale price recorded for a Chicago home since August 2018.

The sale of the 12,000-square-foot mansion on a double lot on Howe Street, which was not openly listed for sale, is the highest-priced purchase of a single residential property in the Chicago area in 2020. But a situation in Winnetka, where the Chicago Tribune has reported that three different multimillion-dollar mansions may have been bought by a single entity, prevents the Howe Street mansion from taking this year’s crown at the moment.

The sellers on Howe Street, William and Sandra Sterling, could not be reached for comment. The agent who represented them, Tim Salm of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty, declined to comment, as did the buyer’s agent, Phil Skowron of @properties. The buyers are not yet identified in public records.

The Sterlings’ asking price for the six-bedroom house was $14.5 million. They sold for 18 percent less than that.

William Sterling is the managing partner of Sandia Point, a quantitative research and trading firm with offices in Chicago and New York.

In 2013, the Sterlings paid $3.95 million for the land the house is built on. There is no public record of what they spent to build the house.

No photos of the interior of the home are available, and neither are details such as a bedroom count.

Built by BGD&C, a firm that has built several of the multi-lot mansions in the section of Lincoln Park south of Armitage, the house, according to marketing information from Salm, has “grand living and dining rooms which open onto south terrace. Beautiful stone and wide plank hardwood flooring throughout. Jaw-dropping sculptural staircase topped by skylight and one-of-a-kind chandelier.”

The $11.9 million sale price is the highest in the city since buyers paid the same amount in August 2018 for a mansion two blocks west on Burling Street. That one was also built by BGD&C.

In 2019, the highest anyone was recorded paying for a Chicago-area home was $11.3 million.

Until this sale on Howe, the highest sale price for a Chicago-area home in 2020 was $9.5 million, which a buyer paid in October for a lakefront mansion in Winnetka. The purchaser, according to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, was a land trust that obscures the buyer’s name. The Chicago Tribune has reported that the buyer is also behind the purchases of two other mansions, one that went for $8.2 million in July, and another that went for $6.2 million in November. The total, $23.9 million, would be for the land alone, minus some swapped out to the local park district, and a single house would be built on the site, according to the Tribune.

Crain’s could not independently confirm that all three properties have one purchaser, as public records do not yet show a buyer in two of the transactions.

At this 55th-floor condo, the view trumps everything

Posted on December 18, 2019 by in Chicago Luxury Real Estate, Crains, Pocket Listing, Trump International Hotel & Tower

The vistas from a unit with a 90-foot span of floor-to-ceiling windows in Trump Tower convinced a Glen Ellyn couple to move downtown. Now they’re off to Florida, and it’s soon for sale at $2.99 million. Take a photo tour.

Written by: DENNIS RODKIN

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Glenda Spangler wasn’t entirely convinced that she and her husband, Ed, should buy a downtown condo as a getaway from their Glen Ellyn home.

Then she walked into this condo that faces east along the Chicago River from the 55th floor of the Trump International Hotel & Tower.

“I looked out there,” she recalls nearly 10 years later, and ‘I said, OK, I’ll leave Glen Ellyn.'”

The three-bedroom, 3,100-square-foot condo is at one of the rounded corners of the tower, with floor-to-ceiling windows running roughly 90 feet from one end of the home to the other. (See more photos below.)

“The view is spectacular,” Ed Spangler said.  “In the morning the sunrise on the lake, then as it comes up it lights up the city all around you. And later the sunset lights up the city in a whole different way.”

That view, the dozens of restaurants and cultural institutions within walking distance and the high level of service in the amenity-rich tower gradually shifted the couple’s allegiance, and two years later the condo became their primary Chicago residence and they sold their Glen Ellyn home of more than two decades.

Ed Spangler, who retired a few years ago from a career in consulting, and Glenda, who retired from a consumer products company several years ago, plan to relocate to Florida. They’ll put their Trump Tower condo on the market in January. Represented by Phil Skowron of @properties, it’s priced at $2.99 million.

See more homes in our Before It Hits the Market series.

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The curvature of the outer wall enhances the dynamic nature of the view; nothing is flat and static. Glenda Spangler designed the tile-covered fireplace wall to take it further. Most of the time, it looks neutral, but “it’s a mother-of-pearl tile,” she said, “so when the light hits it, it’s like gold.” She designed this wall, with the cutouts for shelving and a fireplace, to be contemporary with a hint of tradition.

 

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The combination of den and kitchen is a warm, intimate family space separate from the large main room that’s designed for living and dining room functions. The windows here are oriented northeast, toward the towers of picturesque landmarks, the Wrigley building and the former Tribune tower.

 

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Navy Pier’s fireworks, boats cruising along the river, and handsome buildings like the Hancock Center are all “part of the entertainment,” Ed Spangler said. “We’d like to thank the city for doing the Riverwalk,” which brought sculptural forms and countless pedestrians to the water level. “It’s like theater on the river,” he said.

 

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The living and dining room stretches about 35 feet, lined all the way with windows. On the opposite wall, the design of both the limestone fireplace and the bookcase niches keeps them light and neutral.

 

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Glenda Spangler used a time-honored design trick to emphasize the light and open feeling of the condo: at the right side of the photo is a mirror mounted on a portion of wall, there to multiply the view.

 

n the kitchen, the Spanglers added some cabinets and replaced out-of-date dark granite countertops with a lighter cream version. They bought the condominium in 2010 for $2.3 million, and spent an additional amount afterward on improvements such as these in the kitchen, the tile wall, and others. They declined to say what their total investment in the property is.

n the kitchen, the Spanglers added some cabinets and replaced out-of-date dark granite countertops with a lighter cream version. They bought the condominium in 2010 for $2.3 million, and spent an additional amount afterward on improvements such as these in the kitchen, the tile wall, and others. They declined to say what their total investment in the property is.

 

There’s another fireplace in the master bedroom, set into the tile-lined wall at left. “Before the sun comes up in the morning, it’s nice to turn on the fireplace and sit and look out the windows,” Ed Spangler said. The tile here is a light green, selected to match green frosted glass doors in the adjacent master bath.

There’s another fireplace in the master bedroom, set into the tile-lined wall at left. “Before the sun comes up in the morning, it’s nice to turn on the fireplace and sit and look out the windows,” Ed Spangler said. The tile here is a light green, selected to match green frosted glass doors in the adjacent master bath.

 

Other than new lighter countertops and a television, the master bath is largely as the developers built it, in a neutral look that matches their later design of the rest of the condo.

Other than new lighter countertops and a television, the master bath is largely as the developers built it, in a neutral look that matches their later design of the rest of the condo.

 

There are two more bedrooms in the condo, this one used as an office.

There are two more bedrooms in the condo, this one used as an office.

 

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The view, ever-changing with the season and the time of day, is the main event at this condo. Because of the building’s fortuitous siting at a prominent bend in the river, from inside some condos it looks as if the tower was built over the river itself. From the Spanglers’ unit, the view encompasses everything from Cloud Gate, aka The Bean, out to O’Hare, Glenda Spangler said. They plan to divide their time between Florida and California, two beautiful parts of the world, but “there’s nothing like this” in either place, she said.