Got Books? This Lincoln Park 2-Bedroom Is For You: 615 W. Deming
This 2-bedroom in Stonegate Terrace at 615 W. Deming in East Lincoln Park recently came on the market.
The building was built in 1999 and has an elevator.
The unit was last listed about 2 years ago but didn’t sell.
At 2100 square feet, the duplex up has a 2-story living room with a wall of built-in bookshelves from floor to ceiling (complete with ladder.)
If you can’t fit a book collection on those shelves, you have a real problem.
The kitchen is described in the listing as a “chef’s kitchen” with a large granite kitchen island, white cabinets and a white refrigerator and stove but stainless steel dishwasher.
There’s a family room, which appears to be the loft, on the second floor, along with the two bedrooms.
The master bathroom is marble.
It is a south facing unit, so it looks out to the back of the building.
It has a 20×8 deck and a garage space.
In 2011, it came on the market at $735,000 and lowered to $679,000 before being cancelled.
But that was then and this is now.
It has come back on at a higher price, at $699,900.
Will it find a buyer in this hotter market?
James Kramer at Koenig & Strey has the listing. See the pictures here.
Unit #403: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2100 square feet, duplex up, 1 car garage
- Sold in February 1999 for $420,000
- Sold in June 2007 for $695,500
- Originally listed in March 2011 for $735,000
- Reduced
- Was listed in November 2011 for $679,000
- Withdrawn
- Currently listed for $699,900
- Assessments of $488 a month
- Taxes of $9026
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the unit
- Bedroom #1: 16×15 (second floor)
- Bedroom #2: 14×12 (main floor)
- Family room: 23×10 (second floor)
This is going to need a particular sort of buyer. It’s got a lot of space, but not very well configured for a family. It’s pretty spendy for a lot of the younger DINKs who would be interested in settling in the area, and I’d think older DINKs with book collections would be looking at some of the gorgeous vintage condos on the quiet streets east of Clark or in Lakeview, not this building. But I’m probably biased because I have always hated the exterior of this place for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on.
I checked out this place in 2011 – the layout is very dramatic, though of course that means “odd.” There is the super impressive main room with a dated kitchen lining one wall and the crazy massive bookshelf wall on the other. One bedroom is tucked on the first floor and the other is on the second floor along with a huge landing which sits above the kitchen and the first floor bedroom and bathroom. I’m not sure what one could do with the landing/loft/family room, but it is very large and someone creative could probably figure out something cool. There is plenty of space downstairs for the dining table + hanging out. The location is pretty awesome with high walkability – just around the corner from a lot of great food places on Clark. The listing photos also appear to be the same from 2011, though maybe not much has changed in the interim. And for someone with a child, this is in the Alcott school zone + St Clement’s is at the end of the block + Francis Parker is not too far away.
I love the two story book shelves but I have always wanted to live in a library or book store! I don’t know how you can actually fill all of those selves and I can’t imaging dusting them. For some reason I think its a little too bright in the unit. I would paint the walls darker…make the fireplace more gothic looking.
I probably have enough books to fill those bookshelves, but for the last 3 years, I’ve been slowly replacing my collection with digital copies and donating the books themselves. Other than a collector who has a lot of rare editions, does anyone really need bookshelves anymore?
Alcott is pretty much a top IL elementary school at this point. 95% meet and exceed state tests. In 2002 it was 59%.
Not exactly well-suited to a family, given the bedroom locations. And the loft seems a tad narrow to comfortably serve as a t.v. area. That said, I wonder if the upstairs bedroom and loft area could be reconfigured as two bedrooms. That might be more attractive to current or prospective parents.
It needs a new fridge and a new stove/proper hood. I’d also consider removing some of the upper book shleves and mounting some art instead.
Those assessments should probably be increased a little.
This is a cool place in a great walkable neighborhood. Obviously a place for people without kids. I like the classic neutral finishes like Crema Marfil marble tile, it never goes out of style. One could paint this place, or use decor, to give it any drama they wanted. the drama doesn’t have to be in the finishes. Couldn’t someone just hire a custom cabinet guy to replace the white doors on the kitchen cabinets?m this place would make a great gay stabbin’-cabin for craigslist pick-ups and dates, etc. Perfect type place for a gay buyer. Can’t see a married couple with family in here.
Neighborhood
Population
Total Population 63230
Married 17422
Household with Children 4073
People per Household 2
Median Age 32
Housing Dwelling Age 47
Median Yrs in Res 2.28
Owner Occupied Dwellings 16502
Rentals 18121
This place screams odd and ugly! Big bookcases can be so cool but this just looks blah and odd being painted the same color as everything else. The loft upstairs seems so long and narrow as to be useless as a real family room unless it is an office or sewing room or something. The kitchen needs help, it is a rear unit, ugh!
Perhaps some staging would help this place but as is I think there is VERY good reason it didn’t sell for $679k in 2011 nor will sell at $699k now.
I ‘have’ books
HH, just admit you want it to be your stabbin’ cabin. You and Bob can have the time of your lives! Madeline and Mitch could even come watch!!
most books worth having in a home library aren’t digital, or aren’t best suited to the digital medium. Older books, pre-Sixities books, art books, travel books, cook books, out-of-print books, etc. If you read David Balducci and other stuff, just use the CPL or buy the download. But shelves will never go out.
“HH, just admit you want it to be your stabbin’ cabin.”
Are you kidding? I want a pad with a classic wood-paneled library/reading room, a billiard room w/ expensive Scotch, and also a private chapel like European aristocracy had!
helmet ever toured the McCormick Mansion in wheaton? You’d love it
What proper home would be without a library? This is large enough to fill entire shelves of one color, or author, if you really must. It’s quite striking, even if it isn’t in burled oak. Unfortunately, as in a castle, these high ceilings bounce sound, right up and over the parapet, oh…loft. It’s a pity the lobby looks like a servant’s entrance.
“Madeline and Mitch could even come watch!!”
Oh my friend, I am not the least bit interested in “watching.”
Agree with HH on what a real library reading room should look like…I guess that is what I ment about making it darker with a more traditional mantel. its almost like they had these huge walls and didn’t know what to do with them so they but in bookcases. And that lobby is weird, when I saw the picture I thought it was the entrance to the communal laundry room.
No problems filling the bookshelves for the collector but who wants to read/sleep in rooms smelling of food because of a lousy kitchen. This unit smacks of middle income desiring sophistication. Bad simply bad.
‘This unit smacks of middle income desiring sophistication’
Well put ed. I think that can be said for a majority of properties here… trying to be something they’re not and failing miserably. It’s like stainless steel appliances: I don’t see a well made Wolf stove ever going out of style (nor function) as thick gauge steel/stainless is apart of it’s overall construction. On the other hand, a cheap stove that’s clad in thin stainless on it’s final production step for appearance sake only, does not make it a steel appliance although it is certainly sold that way.
It’s the Olive Gardening of real estate – a bad imitation of the real thing, but much of the public buys into it so why change. Why would a developer spend more on a masonry fireplace in an expensive property when he can install a $400 bent metal firebox, call it a fireplace and sell the house anyway? While I’d still call it an apartment, this unit is to architecture like a parking ticket is to literature.
All that open space makes me nervous. I prefer cozy.
‘This unit smacks of middle income desiring sophistication’
But is that a bad thing? Should all middle income people settle for a brick ranch in the burbs?
I guess unit like these just make me realize why I like vintage units places better. Everything seems more “real,” and more solid. I had a one bedroom condo which was created for middle class people of the time, but it acknowledged that a single or couple middle class person would use a big dining room, and an open airy space with big windows that actually created a cross breeze so only on the hottest most humid days would you have to turn on the ac…with wood floors and a real masonary fireplace. The walls would solid and (besides the ceilings and floors) you couldnt hear a thing from the person you share a wall with.
I know construction costs are to blame but its too bad that they dont have unit available in new construction, with nice finishes and sold construction even for us little “middle class, ” people.
When I hear that Alcott is now a good school, it makes me wish we’d stuck it out in LP a little longer. We moved from there about a decade ago, back when Alcott was mediocre.
Mitch:
They do have the types of units/ solid built that you are talking about but they are custom and expensive. It is all about buying a home and not an investment. I have lived in 3 vintage units in Chicago over 40 years. Each unit was in need of restoration work but the structure, room sizes, light, etc were great and I organized the upgrades rather than buying someone else’s questionable upgrade. All sold rapidly when I was ready to move/ quickly even a greystone in 2010.
“This unit smacks of middle income desiring sophistication”
A good interior designer could do wonders with this place and it could easily be truly sophisticated. It does lack a drop-the-tighy-whities-view however. Not much a designer or Nate could do about that.
And that stretch of Deming is really lovely – I’ve often wondered why the homes/apartments on that street all have front lawns.
ed:
Agree on that..vintage is the way to go if you want to do your own work and pick out your own finishes. As long as the building has good bones, which most of them do the building I lived in had been neglected for around 30 years, (when I first moved in we still had whores roaming the parking lot and looking for tricks when people were coming home from work, which gave it I thought, its own special charms but the rest of the association wasnt so thrilled so the poor whores had to move on to new stomping grounds) and had a developer rehab as cheap as possible but once we took over and fixed things we discovered a bomb could go off in the courtyard and those dam walls would still be standing.
Makes me wonder what will happen to all this cheap construction in 30, 50 and 70 years.
The way to have an awesome two-story library is to have catwalks going around perimeter so you don’t fall off the ladder. Also cozifies huge volumes. How it’s done:
http://daviddixbooksco.com/#/libraries/4558961715
(Scroll down)
Duff Cooper’s library at the UK embassy in Paris is the shit. Built it himself with a few friends using papier mache, common lumber and pipe.