On the Market
No Stone Left Unturned—Hinsdale
List Price: $2.499 million
The Property: The limestone home from the 1940s that stood on this Hinsdale lot until a couple of years ago is gone but not forgotten.
In 2007, Oakley Home Builders bought the property in order to build a new, larger home on the site—but instead of trashing the stone from the old house, they used it in the foundation for the new place’s front porch and in the chimney of an outdoor fireplace on its rear terrace. “What we saved on new stone is about what we spent to restore the old stone, so it’s not a money-conscious move,” said Oakley’s Steve Sobkowiak. “It’s more like a community-conscious move.”
Recycling the stone is one of several green steps that Oakley took to make this high-end Nantucket-style home eco-smart. It also used blown-in insulation, as well as high-efficiency windows, furnace, and air conditioning.
Those green features enhance a pretty house whose good looks start with a broad front porch and extend to a handsome custom staircase, a kitchen with dark-paneled cabinet backs and other stylish details, and an airy attic room that gets daylight from the house’s square cupola. The main floor’s living and dining rooms are impressive, but the real visual oomph comes from the library, with its big windows, walnut shelves and paneling, and a door to the porch. There are four bedrooms on the second floor; the master has a soaring ceiling and a balcony overlooking the large backyard.
In the basement, the sloping site and a deep dig-out made it possible to bring a lot of natural light into part of the space. Elsewhere, oversize Chicago pavement bricks, once part of the old home’s patio, have been incorporated into the walls of this house’s wine room. “We didn’t want to build a giant ‘Hey, check this out’ house here on one of Hinsdale’s main streets,” said Steve Sobkowiak, who is a partner in Oakley with Ryan Dunham. Together they have built 35 homes in the western suburbs in the past six years—and as you will see in the video, Sobkowiak is proud of what they have created here.
Price Points: The builders originally listed the house at $2.895 million; last summer they cut the asking price by nearly $400,000.
Listing Agent: Dawn McKenna of Coldwell Banker; 630-789-8280 or dawn.mckenna@cbexchange.com
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Reader Comments:
This house sold Jan. 23, 2012, for $1.75 million. By the time of the sale, the asking price was down to $1,999,999. The ultimate sale price is 60% of the builders' original price ($2.895 million) and 70% of what they were asking when we posted the story above ($2.499 million).