From Historic Mansion to Condos on Lincoln Park: 3030 N. Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview
We recently chattered about the listing of the Theurer-Wrigley Mansion at 2466 N. Lakeview in Lincoln Park and several people mentioned the possibility of the house being split into condos because it might have a better chance of selling.
See that chatter here.
That is apparently exactly what has happened to the Meeker Mansion at 3030 N. Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview.
Built in 1913 for Arthur Meeker, the head of the Armour Meat Company, this house, similarly to the Theurer-Wrigley Mansion, is also on a corner lot with Lincoln Park frontage.
Dennis Rodkin at Chicago Magazine’s Deal Estate got the scoop back in 2008:
“Last week, Emily Sachs Wong, the Koenig & Strey GMAC agent who for several months had been trying to sell the mansion as a single-family home priced at $4.5 million, told me that the owner (whom she would not identify) was going to take it off the market if it didn’t sell by Good Friday (March 21st). The plan, she said, was to install condos in the mansion. As Good Friday approached and I called with more questions, Wong did not respond.”
Sure enough, it is now what looks to be 4 condos. Only one, Unit #202, currently remains on the market.
It is a 4-bedroom duplex up with a terrace.
All of the vintage features have been stripped out of it, however. There is no crown molding, wood paneling, stained glass or period fireplaces.
It now has a modern kitchen with Subzero and Gaggenau appliances with Arclinea wood cabinets.
3 of the 4 bedrooms are on the second floor.
The unit also has 2-car tandem garage parking.
This unit has been reduced $301,000 since it was first listed in August 2009.
The other 3 units have apparently already sold. I could only find sales prices for two of them:
- Unit #401: Sold in May 2010 for $2.3 million
- Unit #201: Sold in May 2010 for $1.675 million
Will this be the fate of the Theurer-Wrigley Mansion?
Emily Sachs Wong at Koenig & Strey Real Living has the listing. See the pictures here.
Unit #202: 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 2964 square feet, duplex up
- Originally listed in August 2009 for $1.85 million
- Reduced several times
- Currently listed at $1.549 million
- Assessments of $733 a month (there appears to be an elevator on the property)
- Taxes are “new”
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the unit
- 2-car tandem parking for $75,000 extra
- Bedroom #1: 17×12 (third floor)
- Bedroom #2: 13×11 (third floor)
- Bedroom #3: 13×11 (third floor)
- Bedroom #4: 12×10 (second floor)
Wow, looks like the developer here made out, but there really isn’t enough information to know. Like, what kind of condition was the place in before reno and how much had to be spent to develop the place as condos?
Probably was in very poor condition if the vintage details could not be preserved. Yet it seems to me that they could have been restored for the prices these places are selling for.
they sure could have, but it looks like most of the units sold so clearly there’s a market for this. I think the Theurer property is in better condition and there is a market for mansions in LP so who knows what will happen there.
Anyone have the scoop on what will become of the Ronald McDonald house on Deming once CMH moves?
Here’s a video tour of the Wrigley Mansion, with a son of the owner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwyLqRJ3jpU
Speculation about its going condo is utter nonsense.
“Will this be the fate of the Theurer-Wrigley Mansion?”
So unit #401 and #201 sold in 10 months, this unit has sat for 26 months and someone noted in the Wrigley thread that the fourth unit was kept by the developer… it certainly doesn’t seem to me that this conversion has been successful and I could imagine a similar or worse situation if the Wrigley mansion were hacked up.
You are coming off like a petulant child. Comparing this property to the Theurer-Wrigley mansion is absolutely absurd.
HAHAHAHHAAHAH – YOU’VE BEEN SCHOOLED!!! WHO IS THE FOOL NOW!!???!!!111
HD – you are losing it – seriously, either you need to see a doc or you need to take your meds.
I take this to mean that you are offering to sell me oxycotin in the alley.
“clio on November 8th, 2011 at 11:59 am
HD – you are losing it – seriously, either you need to see a doc or you need to take your meds.””
I should add that while I normally like Ranquist, I find the idea of gutting historic mansions to be criminal. You can bet that the preservationists would have their undies in a bunch if somebody wanted to do this crap to the Wrigley mansion. It’s one more obstacle and one more reason it will never happen. Whatever, I think I’ve pretty much made my opinion clear on this matter. I’ll remove myself from this “discussion” now.
“I take this to mean that you are offering to sell me oxycotin in the alley”
uhhh – u don’t need oxycontin – you need high doses of haldol – stat!!!
“You are coming off like a petulant child. Comparing this property to the Theurer-Wrigley mansion is absolutely absurd.”
“Whatever, I think I’ve pretty much made my opinion clear on this matter. I’ll remove myself from this “discussion” now.”
You’ve made it quite clear who the adult in the room is. Maybe you and clio could hold a “who has the bigger dick on the internet” contest. I’m quite certain that no matter the result, you’d both be winners.
Jeebus.
“I’m quite certain that no matter the result, you’d both be winners.”
Finally – you realize the truth….
I agree with Andy. I think it would be a crime to chop up the Wrigley mansion into condos like they did a this place. Isn’t there a Marshall Fields mansion in the South Loop that was converted to condos a while back?
Ugh. I think the contempory interior is a big mistake.
The realtor is hot, however.
I would love to know the square foot, floorplan and details of the two units that sold. I really like this place. Would buy it if I could sell my current.
As much as I’d like to see these old mansions remain intact with the original features I don’t see how they can survive. These two places aren’t just ridiculously huge, they are ridiculously huge and old. So the market is limited to someone with a heavy wallet AND major appreciation for the old world quality and aesthetics. Hard to say if converting to condos was the right thing for this owner, but at least they have half there equity stake back.
I’d say this has been a success. Two sales totaling $3.9 million, with two more not sold and they were initially asking $4.5 million for the whole house. If they sell the listed unit for $1.1 million they probably will cover all their development costs and have a free unit on top of that.
American mansions do nothing for me. I toured the Pabst mansion in Milwaukee, which seems more significant than the subject property. I mean compared to places like Doria Pamphilj palazzo in Rome, etc. these Chicago houses seem meaningless.
“Ugh. I think the contempory interior is a big mistake.”
Ditto. JAPpy palace looks totally stupid.
I viewed the video of the Wrigley Mansion and have to agree that it would be sad to break the place of. It’s a lovely, warm, homey old place with a lot of charm.
To helmethofer, you must never have seen the beautiful mansions on Rhode Island, or the mansionettes and fantastic old penthouses in Manhattan, or some of the places on St. Louis’ Westmoreland and Portland Places, or some of the finer mansions in Chicago or north shore suburbs.
While I’ll admit that there are few mansions in the US that equal the fantastic palaces of Europe, consider the sources of the wealth that built them. Great American houses were mostly built by great entrepreneurs who built this country while they built the fortunes that bought their lavish houses. These people had to EARN their money. They gave the world the most advanced industrial economy the world had ever known, between 1870 and 1930, and they gave us what we think of as the modern world. In doing so they enriched the larger population, to give us the richest and most comfortable working classes ever known until their time.If ever a bunch of people ever earned their money and their fantasy lifestyles, these people did.
The great palaces of Europe, however, were not built by wealth earned by productive activity, but by conquest and plunder, with a hereditary “noble” class legally entitled to strip the rest of the population by force, and who disdained productive work as beneath their dignity. Wow, what a palace you can build when you can legally steal the money to build it at the point of a sword and strip the population down to naked poverty. This is what I think of when I look at a place like Versailles, for all its beauty.
Yes one of them was featured in chicago home and garden magazine this month.
you mean “robber barons”, those that got extremely rich before unions fought for basic worker rights, before child labor laws and all that stuff? How about Steve Jobs getting rich from shipping all the jobs outside the US to Taiwan where the conditions are so poor workers are committing suicide? You’re right about many of those mansions like in Newport, RI though. I was thinking of these urban ones like the Theurer-Wrigley Mansion, they’re not that cool compared to those in Europe, that’s all. Jacobins were not virtuous people.
Isn’t this located just around the corner from a convent that was sold by the nuns to a condo converter? How’s that project going now?
For an example of how a classic old mansion can be restored with integrity and artistic taste, check out 817 W. Hutchinson, next door to ex-Gov. Thompson. Here’s an example of what people with more taste than money (and plenty of both, of course) can do with a “vintage” property. Such a refreshing change from the McMansions, designed and purchased by people with more money than taste.