This 12-room limestone townhouse spent a year as a high-end rental because its original owners, who had relocated to California, “kept thinking they’d come back to Chicago,” says their agent, Jennifer Ames of Coldwell Banker.

From its hand-carved four-story façade to its top-floor conservatory, the detailing of the house is “masterful,” as Ames says. A three-story copper bay graces the back of the house, and there is a coved oval ceiling in the dining room. The diamond pattern with black insets on the foyer’s limestone floor pays homage to David Adler, the renowned North Shore architect of the early 20th century.

According to Ames, the sellers, Alan and Cynthia Berkshire, bought the custom-built house in March 2002 for $2.2 million from the builder after the clients for whom the home had been designed moved to Winnetka. When Alan, a senior executive vice president at Nuveen Investments, was transferred to California in 2006, the couple expected the move to be temporary. They only decided to list the house for sale in June 2007. Two months later, a couple moving from the East Coast contracted to buy it, Ames says; their names are not in public records of the sale, and the Berkshires could not be reached for comment.

Photograph: Chris Guillen