On the Market

An Artfully Crafted Loft in River North

List Price: $1.199 million
The Property: Set amidst a mix of new high-rises and houses on the western edge of River North is a handsome old brick loft building that was the Stiffel Lamp factory in the neighborhood’s former life as a manufacturing district. Atop a corner of the building where views stretch east to the towers of Michigan Avenue and south into a canyon of contemporary steel-and-glass buildings is a two-story home whose warm Arts and Crafts styling makes it feel like a souvenir of the building’s origins.

When The Enterprise Companies was converting the defunct factory into lofts in 2001, Rick Edel, a marketing executive, bought this prime unit and gave it a thorough upgrade. The space already had a main room 47 feet long, heavy timber beams in ceilings 13.5 feet high, and exposed brick walls. Edel enlarged the kitchen, completed the walls around a third bedroom (it had partial walls, suited to a study) and upgraded all the doors, the lighting, the kitchen and bath fixtures, and the 620-square-foot deck that wraps two sides of the master bedroom.

The layout “combines openness and privacy,” says Keith Wilkey, the agent representing the home. While the main room is capacious, it breaks down easily into three or four zones, and each of the three bedrooms is distant from the others, two on opposite ends of the main floor and the large master by itself upstairs.

The master suite is an inviting haven, with a nicely equipped bathroom, ample closet space, a bedroom with room for a seating area, and that deck. With a grill, several seat groupings, and a tabletop fire pit, the deck is an attractive spot, but it’s those knockout views that give it its magnetism.

Edel chose finishes that suit both the vintage of the building and his collections of Arts and Crafts furniture and art. As you’ll see in the video, he kept the palette simple: milk glass for all the doors, a pea-soup green right out of the Arts and Crafts palette for walls and tile, and oak trim that complements the hefty wood timbers.

No detail was left unconsidered. Even the laundry room, set in a nook off the entry hall, got a pair of milk-glass doors—visitors might think it’s another bedroom or office.

Price Points: Edel paid $711,000 for the loft in 2001. The upgrades described above cost “at least as much,” Wilkey says, as the difference between that and his $1.199 million asking price. The property went on the market in early December. Two parking spaces are also for sale, at $40,000 each.

Listing Agent: Keith Wilkey of Prudential Rubloff, 312-268-2798; kwilkey@rubloff.com

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