Orland Park’s Home on the Range

List Price: $2.5 million
The Property: Now this is a ranch house. The Orland Park residence is infused with the character and materials of the American West, from its log-framed entry to the forest of timber beams and the huge stone chimney in the great room…

Top-Floor Views from Available Aqua Condos

Since Jeanne Gang’s Aqua was completed in 2009, views of the tower have landed in countless tourists’ scrapbooks and Facebook posts. But views from Aqua can be pretty sweet, too, as you will see in the video and pictures I shot recently from two condos for sale on the tower’s top residential floors…

A Window on Old Glencoe

List Price: $2.195 million
The Property: The many windows that line the front of this 1920s Glencoe house evoke a summer day before air conditioning, when all those windows could be thrown open to lure in a cool breeze off Lake Michigan, just three blocks away…

Congressman Quigley to Some Boat Owners: Shove Off

This week, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (D-5th) is releasing a list of 60 ideas to reduce the federal debt and deficit spending—and already, one of the smallest proposals in the pack has stirred up angry opposition. Quigley advocates ending the home mortgage interest deduction for boats that owners have claimed as second homes…

An In-House Resort in Downers Grove

List Price: $3.85 million
The Property: A cobblestone drive leads over a bridge and past a waterfall to the front door of this 15-room country manor in Downers Grove. “This is our resort that we don’t have to travel to,” says Joel Anderson, the Downers Grove homebuilder who created the place for himself, his wife, Maggie, and their children in 2008…