Newly Renovated Pre-War 2-Bedroom on the Lake: 3800 N. Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview
This 2-bedroom in 3800 N. Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview came on the market in January 2023.
Built in 1927, 3800 N. Lake Shore Drive has 91 units and valet leased garage parking. It has a semi-private elevator with only 2 units per floor.
It has a landscaped yard with seating and grills, an exercise room, bike room, dog run, package room, on-site manager and engineer but no door staff.
This corner unit has been “newly renovated” but has some of its vintage features including extra deep moldings, arches, and a barrel-vaulted foyer.
It has newly refinished hardwood floors throughout and a gas fireplace in the living room, complete with a stone mantle.
The listing says it has larger, newer windows.
Like many vintage units, it has a separate dining room.
The kitchen has been “updated” and has white cabinets, new quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances and 2 seats at a peninsula.
It also has a breakfast area and a sitting area, with a window, which could be an office or work-at-home space.
The primary bedroom has an en suite bath with luxe green slated-lined steam shower with body sprays and new dual vanity.
There’s a tub in the second bathroom.
The listing says there’s a new a/c system last year. It also has a washer/dryer in the unit.
If you need parking, there is 24-hour leased valet parking for 2 vehicles along with a weekly car wash and free guest parking.
You’ll get an additional storage locker.
This building is near the lake front golf course and bike paths as well as the shops and restaurants of East Lakeview.
Listed in January 2023 for $565,000, it has been reduced $16,000 to $549,000.
For 2,149 square feet, is this a deal?
Laura England and Adrienne Giorgolo at Compass have the listing. See the pictures and floor plan here.
Unit #8E: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2149 square feet
- Sold in October 1996 for $165,000
- Sold in September 2017 for $485,000
- Was listed in September 2022
- Re-listed in January 2023 for $565,000
- Under contract
- Re-listed in February 2023
- Reduced
- Currently listed in March 2023 at $549,000
- Assessments of $1671 a month (includes heat, cable, exercise room, exterior maintenance, lawn care, scavenger, snow removal, Internet)
- Taxes of $10,456
- Space Pac cooling
- Washer/dryer in the unit
- 2-car 24-hour valet leased garage parking available
- Gas fireplace
- Bedroom #1: 17×11
- Bedroom #2: 18×11
- Living room: 24×16
- Dining room: 19×14
- Kitchen: 9×16
- Den: 10×7
- Gallery: 15×7
- Breakfast room: 10×8
Nice job with the reno, but a few notes:
no closet in the second “bedroom”, so it’s “not a bedroom”
Don’t love a J&J primary bath–unless that second “bedroom” is “not a bedroom”–but then this is a 1 + den
Louvered bifold on the laundry doesn’t look great–I understand “why”, but dislike.
The bath tile photgraphs pretty poorly–or is *really* hard to clean. Unclear if it’s an issue irl.
Enjoying the dummy TV that’s even higher than most, with the cool mantel, and then angled up. Staged teh place with two desks, and no place to watch tv.
Corner unit in a lakefront building with zero views worth featuring? oof.
How much is the parking per month??
Primary suite with a Jack and Jill bathroom? There’s so much wasted wall space with the bathroom design. Without that extra door, you could have had a giant shower. If you put the sinks next to the toilet, there might have been space for a Japanese soaking tub. I would want to remodel the bathroom if I bought this place.
I know they were working within the constraints of the building and I might be the only one who is annoyed by kitchen cabinets hanging off of a soffit, but it drives me nuts.
I love the arched doorway and the millwork. The stone fireplace is cool too. I would reconfigure the living space so that the TV was in the second bedroom and use that space as a family room instead. It would be easy enough to add a closet in there if the owner wanted.
The space off the kitchen with the half wall between the breakfast nook and office space seems silly. I’d knock down that wall to create a proper full size dining space with room for 6.
The formal dining room could be easily walled off and the place could be marketed as a 3 bedroom. If french doors were put in, the current dining room could be considered an optional formal dining room / family room.
“It would be easy enough to add a closet in there if the owner wanted.”
As KK notes, it would be “easy enough” to make it a 3 bed, too.
But it is what it is for now. And using the “natural light + closet” “requirement”, this unit has only one bedroom.
“kitchen cabinets hanging off of a soffit”
What’s the alternative, if the space “needs” to have a soffit?
No upper cabinets?
Lower the whole ceiling?
Something else?
Since everybody’s knocking down walls and putting in french doors and adding closets and whatnot, I’ll put in my 2 cents and say I’d use the dining room as the living room and vice versa.
I had to take a closet out of a bedroom and I just haven’t felt like spending money on adding a closet back. I was reading that a room doesn’t actually need a closet to be called a bedroom. There are rules about bedroom egress, but not closets. I still plan to add a closet back before I sell.
The second bedroom in this place is large. Listing it as a 2 bedroom seems fair. Seeing teeny tiny ranch houses listed with 3 tiny, windowless “bedrooms” in the basement is really grating.
this is absolutely a 2br – just because there’s no closet right now, the room is 18×11 on the floor plan, plenty of space to add a closet if needed… this unit is a lot nicer than the comments here would indicate!
I’ve been reading for years on the CC that a closet is a “requirement”, so I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin.
Also: the City’s design review criteria *do* include a closet for every bedroom (see pg 2, “Provide closets with a minimum 15 SF at each bedroom. Closet SF not to be included within bedroom SF.”)
https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/dcd/general/housing/ARO_Design_Standards.pdf
But that’s only for new or rehabs with plan submissions, which I would think this wasn’t.
This is a nice place. Staging as noted above is silly. Has almost too much dining seating – these folks could rent one of their dining areas out to the owners of some of the no-dining area units featured recently on here.
This would make a killer 1Br
Kitchen is nice but Having a kitchen bar area with an eating area is dumb.
Joining the chorus that the breakfast nook/office should have been incorporated into a single room.
W/D should have been incorporated into the 2nd Bathroom
Listing history is really odd. in ’20 was availiable for rent for $3k/mo, assuming that it was post renovation, looks like its been available since
“Listing history is really odd. in ’20 was availiable for rent for $3k/mo, assuming that it was post renovation, looks like its been available since”
Little thing called “the pandemic” hit in 2020 so perhaps they were renovating it to sell and then got caught in the 2020 panic that housing was going to be toast. And then everyone fled the cities. Many decided to rent instead.
Interesting tidbit about this building: we haven’t chattered about it since 2010. Kind of surprised it’s been that long. And back then we were talking about short sales and foreclosures.
Our comments in the 2010 chatter were pretty grim too. Even 2 years after the start of the bust, things were still awful.
homedelete on November 18th, 2010 at 9:28 pm e
And daycare and student loans and credit cards. EArlier this evening I had a conversation with a married friend in south florida and he commented that between us four 30+ year old professionals there wasn’t even one homeowner. You can have a $100k plus household and after the $1,400 a month daycare, the car payment, the student loans, the credit cards and other random monthly payments, the last thing in the world younger people want to do is take on a $1,000 a month association payment (even IF it includes cable) + PITI. Home prices are in for a long downward trend if you’re going to rely on today’s youth and first time home buyers to prop it up.
https://cribchatter.com/on-the-market-for-over-3-years-and-now-a-short-sale-3800-n-lake-shore-drive-in-lakeview/
One of my favorite buildings and one I hope to live in one day, but not in this particular tier with every view blocked. The A-D tiers have lake views and you pay a premium, of course.
Ah, the good old days of 2010 when homedelete was a constructive contributor to the site.
That 2010 Chatter was a real trip down memory lane. Some Clio and even a little Groove too.
Also from homedelete in that post: “I find it funny that some people think that one of these days the real estate market is going to return, sort of like flipping a light switch on, the market will again appreciate. But it’s not like that. There’s been three years of nothing but horrific depression-era news coming from every aspect of the housing industry. It’s more akin to being diagnosed with a serious but curable medical condition. Yes, you will survive, but it’s a long road to recovery and the medicine may be worse than the disease.”
We were moving out of a rental in ELP at the time of that post to buy our first place (hence my question re: returning to tip the staff at the holidays after moving out). We sold a few years later, and after costs only “made” $30k or so, so nothing to write home about, but not exactly a Depression-era loss. The home we live in now (purchased in 2018) probably more than doubled between 2010 and 2018 (had we been looking here in 2010, there’s no way we would have even looked at the dumpy little place we’re in). We were probably up about 60-70% over purchase price a year ago during the Absurd Times, and today maybe 33% over, so not great, but not jumping-out-of-windows Depression era stuff either.