On the Market: Letting Go in Chicago’s St. Ben’s Neighborhood

List Price: $1.25 million The Property: A collaborative effort between the architect Nate Kipnis and a pair of clients dissatisfied with the houses they had seen on the market, this three-bedroom home has an abundance of environmentally friendly features and a distinctly family-style floor plan. The house, which has a green roof, thickly insulated walls and windows, and a layout that maximizes natural ventilation and daylight, was completed this past June in the Northwest Side neighborhood that is alternately known as St. Ben’s and Bell School District. But even before they moved in...

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Guest Blog: Keller in the House: Eavesdropping on the $1,500 Dinner

When I found out Thomas Keller was coming to town to cook side-by-side with Grant Achatz, his most famous and successful protégé, I thought to myself: Must. Be. There. The two chefs had teamed up to do a series of events—one at Per Se in New York, one at Alinea, and a final stop at The French Laundry in California—each a three-hour, 20-course meal priced at $1,500 a head. I’m not even sure why I found the idea of this event so thrilling. Was it the outrageous price tag as we teeter on the brink of a depression? Was it the presence of Keller, perhaps America’s most...

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The Library Bistro

Jim Dragatsis (Marigold), Howard Natinsky (Fat Cat), and Cary Michael (formerly of Rockit) are collaborating on Branch 27 (1371 W. Chicago Ave.), a 120-seat American bistro in the old 27th Ward library. “We are focusing on foods people are very familiar with—flat-iron steaks, great mussels, great seafood—classics done very well,” says Dragatsis. “The plates are not going to be loaded with garnishes and sauces.” The partners...

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Housing Bulletin: Auction Bargains and a New Web Site

In this season of extreme markdowns, everybody is offering closeout prices—including the developers of two South Side real-estate projects. The McKinley Park Lofts and Jazz on the Boulevard, a condo and townhouse complex in Bronzeville, have both seen sales slow down dramatically, so the last blocks of units are going up for auction next week....

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White Attic Opens in Bucktown

Vintage Modern
The Andersonville home goods haven White Attic opened its second location on Nov. 8th at 1842 North Damen Avenue (773-252-8844, thewhiteattic.com) in Bucktown’s fledgling design district. The owner, Terry Ledford, handpicks primarily vintage furniture with good bones and lovingly reworks them into pieces that are both modern and quirky. Ledford hand paints each piece, usually in creamy neutrals, and adds unexpected touches such as...

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Guest Blog: Oprah Planning Inauguration Ball

Oprah Winfrey is said to be planning a Candlelight Ball for 1,000 glamorous guests as her inauguration-night fete in Washington, D.C., Chicago magazine’s Marcia Froelke Coburn reports. The talk-show host and Obama supporter has been entertaining bids from Washington-based caterers for the January 20th party at a venue yet to be determined. A spokeswoman for Winfrey said, “We have nothing to confirm at this point.”

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Black Wednesday Photos: Sheffield’s

Black Wednesday brought more parties than we could shake a turkey leg at, but smart barflies started off the long weekend at Sheffield’s, where Thanksgiving Eve festivities included a raffle (Opening day Cubs tickets! Fancy beer!) and enough shots to steel patrons for four days of family togetherness.

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Sale of the Week: Home, Home on Lagrange—River North

List Price:  $1.499 million
Sale Price: $1.3 million
The Property: This three-bedroom condo is on two upper floors of Erie on the Park, an ultramodern steel and glass structure at 510 West Erie Street. The 24-story building is one of two condo high-rises (along with Kingsbury on the Park) designed by the...

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Housing Bulletin: Our Second-Annual Turkey Roundup

Although it’s been a painful year in the real-estate market, there has been some news this week to make us all thankful: the announcement that the mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will not pursue any more foreclosures until January 2009, and the Federal Reserve’s plan, unveiled Tuesday morning, to buy up to $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets to help stabilize the economy and the housing sector.

Even so, we have a tradition here at Deal Estate—dating all the way back to last year—of serving up a platter of turkeys...

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Hot Toddy Holiday

Two Dudes A-Drinking
Before you know it, Thanksgiving will be over and everyone will need a drink. Or three. In Drinking & Writing Vol. IV: The 12 Steps of Xmas, Neo-Futurists Steve Mosqueda and Phil Ridarelli ruminate on hard-drinking authors from Kerouac to Bukowski to Cheever and Capote, as well as on their own drunken...

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Cusp Arrives in Chicago

On the Cusp
Womens’ apparel destination Cusp (835 N. Michigan Ave. Ste. 3020; 312-951-2299) opened its sixth national location at Water Tower Place on Nov. 20th. Even though the boutique was founded several years ago as an affordable offshoot of Neiman Marcus, it features well-known designers such as Tory Burch, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Theory. But shoppers will also find promising

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Weekend Photos: Bar DeVille & Wild Pug

This week we give thanks for two new watering holes: Bar DeVille (701 N. Damen Ave.), the new Ukrainian Village tap from Matt Eisler (Angels & Kings, Empire Liquors, Victory Liquors) and Kevin Heisner, with drinks by master mixologist Bradley Bolt, formerly of The Violet Hour; and Wild Pug, Uptown’s long-delayed ode to pups and Oscar Wilde (we don’t quite get it either) from the same folks as the neighboring Crew Bar + Grill. We also give thanks for a day off: Nightspotting 2.0 is on holiday this Thursday; check back next Monday for shots from the biggest party night of the year, Black Wednesday.

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Sale of the Week: A Kenilworth Sale at an Eight-Year-Old Price

List Price: $3.395 million
Sale Price: $2.2 million
The Property: Its multiply-divided windows, steeply pitched roofs, and English-countryside casualness evoke many of the decades-old mansions in eastern Kenilworth, but in fact this house is just eight years old and on the younger (west) side of town. The 12-room brick and...

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What the Dickens?

Scrooged!
Stores have had their halls decked since Halloween, but for those of us not running a retail establishment, the holiday season is just getting started. This year, leave consumer culture to the mallrats (who has money for excessive shopping anyway?) and go rogue with a couple of irreverent holiday...

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Black Wednesday Bashes

Black Wednesday—a.k.a. Thanksgiving Eve, when all good nightlifers go on the prowl for one last hurrah before buckling down to a long weekend with the family—is upon us. But with the economy in a tailspin, will the so-called biggest party night of the year be more doom and gloom than gin and tonic? Not for those with plastic at the ready and a taste for cocktails. We rounded up the top crop of parties slated for November 26th.

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On the Market: In Lake View, a Brewster Building Condo

List Price: $265,000
The Property: This two-bedroom condo, nicely renovated in the past year and a half, is on the third floor of one of the city’s most distinctive 19th-century residential buildings, The Brewster. Situated at the northwest corner of Pine Grove Avenue and Diversey Parkway and originally known as the...

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