May 18, 2009
Sale of the Week
Sale of the Week: That Yellow House in Old Town
List Price: $2.7 million
Sale Price: $2.375 million
The Property: The bright yellow stucco of this Old Town house makes it look like the kids in the busy play lot across the street attacked the place with their crayons. Built in 1979, when Old Town was a neighborhood for urban pioneers, the house used to have a less showy façade; it was changed during renovations sometime in the 1990s, says Louise Study, the Rubloff agent who represented its sellers in a deal that closed May 12th.
The house sits on an extra-wide wide lot—35 feet, where the norm is 25—which accommodates broad main rooms (the living room and kitchen are both 30 feet wide), a three-car garage, and a large backyard. There are nine rooms, four of them bedrooms, and three-plus baths.
The sellers, Richard and Sonia McArdle, bought the house from its original owners in May 2004 for $2.7 million, according to information from the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. In April 2007, they paid $4.3 million for a house on Astor Street in the Gold Coast. The McArdles—he’s a former Goldman Sachs executive—did not respond to a request for comment about the May 12th sale. The buyers are not yet identified in public records of the sale.
Price Points: The McArdles originally listed this house, in mid-2008, at $2.95 million. Their ultimate selling price, $2.375 million, represents a 12 percent loss on their recorded purchase price for the house.
Listing Agent: Louise Study of Rubloff, 312-368-5324; lstudy@rubloff.com
Posted at 08:11 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink
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AN UPDATE: After we posted this item today, I spoke with Sonia McArdle, one of the sellers of the house. From her, I learned:
When Goldman Sachs transferred her husband to Chicago from New York, the couple thought it was to be a temporary, two-year stay in Chicago. They found this house through friends, liked the street, and bought it. "We didn't do any house-hunting," she told me. They kept their 300-year-old home in the Connecticut countryside, expecting to return to it soon, but instead, "we fell in love with Chicago, to everyone's surprise." They sold the Connecticut house, bought a never-updated 1920s Gold Coast home, and stayed in the Old Town home during renovations of the new place. In October 2008, nearing completion on the new home, they listed this one for sale.
On the history of the house: The site was part of a block-long urban renewal project in the 1970s that included closing down the north end of Ogden Avenue. The space was divided into extra-wide (35-foot) lots "to do something different than the rest of Old Town, with its little 20-foot lots." The original exterior, by architect Larry Booth, had the same three large main-floor windows, but not in the neo-classical look that the facade now has. "It looked very 1970s to me," said McArdle, who, although she didn't live in Chicago then, has seen old photos of the house.