List Price: $1,400,000
Sale Price: $1,075,000
The Property: With its assortment of beams, arches, and crenellations, this brick and limestone mansion on a Beverly hillside suggests an old English home that has been added to and changed over many generations. Locals speculate that was the intention of its architect James Roy Allen, whose only other work known to still stand in the Chicago area is the equally English main gate of the Lake Forest cemetery.

Allen designed the home in 1929 for George W. Reed, who was then the vice president of the Peabody Coal Company. The house has 19 rooms—plus a separate servants’ house with another three rooms—and stands on an acre of ground in the Dan Ryan Woods section of northern Beverly. Kathleen Morgan, the agent who represented the most recent sellers, describes the interior as “exquisite. It’s all carved oak and walnut moldings set off by leaded glass windows, four fireplaces with the original sterling silver andirons, and sterling silver sconces.”

For a few decades, says Morgan, the house was occupied by a branch of the Columban Fathers, a society of Catholic missionaries. “That’s why it’s been preserved so well,” she says. In 2001, long after the mansion was returned to private residential use, Walter and Victoria Cronin bought it for $950,000. The Cronins, who could not be reached for comment, closed on their sale of the house June 30th. The buyers are not yet identified in public records. 

Price Points: Morgan says that her clients were no-nonsense about selling the house. While they could have marked it up higher and waited for a more lucrative sale, they wanted to sell it quickly because they were moving out of town. (She would not specify where they moved.) They listed the property for sale in March but did not begin showings until April 12th. A week later, they had a contract to sell it. “I’m sure they could have gotten more,” Morgan says, “but they were on a mission to get it sold. The people who bought it got an amazing deal.”

Listing Agent: Kathleen Morgan of PRS Associates Realty, 773-233-4700; kmmorgan@sbcglobal.net