Oprah’s Creative Chief Sells in Gold Coast

List Price: $999,000
Sale Price: $934,800
The Property: Lisa Erspamer, the longtime producer at Harpo Productions who is now chief creative officer at the Los Angeles–based Oprah Winfrey Network, has sold her two-bedroom Gold Coast condo for $934,800—or 23 percent less than what she originally paid for it…

Blufftop Beauty in Winnetka

List Price: $5.495 million
The Property: Standing high on a Winnetka bluff in what’s known as the Ravines, this 50-year-old house offers a view to the west of the tree-filled ravine and to the east of Lake Michigan. On a gorgeous summer day like the one when we shot today’s video, it’s easy to see why Robert and Moya Chase haven’t wanted to move in the 35 years since they bought the home…

How’s Mayor Emanuel Doing on Housing?

This week’s flurry of analyses about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first 100 days in office culminates with a WBEZ taping tonight of a forum slated for broadcast Friday morning on the station’s Eight Forty-Eight program. Emanuel and top city officials will attend the taping, and I will be there to toss in a few ideas about the mayor’s efforts on housing. Time permitting—and there are a lot of other pressing topics to consider—here are the subjects I’d like to touch on…

In Winnetka: With Update and Expansion, Twice the Arts and Twice the Crafts

List Price: $3.295 million
The Property: When Robert and Emi Kelsey bought an old Tudor house in Winnetka ten years ago, it was sort of discombobulated. Some decades before, previous owners had sold off the property in front of the house and tacked an awkward entrance onto the back, and there were a couple of staircases but no main stairway…