Highland Park Lakefront Landmark Sold As Is For $800,000

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — A landmark lakefront Italianate mansion on a Highland Park bluff sold Tuesday for $800,000, a fraction of both its original listing price and the amount of money it will cost its new buyer to repair it.

Built in 1919, the E. Lichtstern house and coach house was the only residence on South Deere Park Drive when the street was first subdivided over a decade later, according architectural resource surveys. Since being protected from demolition more than three decades ago, it has undergone a multi-million renovation, a foreclosure and damage for several years of deferred maintenance.

E. Lichtstern has been reported to be the son of Adolph Julius Lichtstern, who was listed as owning the property during its 1926 subdivision and died two years later at the age of 66. The elder Lichtstern immigrated from Germany as a child and worked as a paper boy become a daring commodities broker at the Chicago Board of Trade who attempted to corner the wheat market, according to historical reports.

Architect Arthur Heun designed the Highland Park home in the Italian Renaissance Revival style with long-lost landscaping elements created by Jens Jensen. The "lavish 22-room Italian palazzo was conceived of by Mr. Lichtstern in his travels in Italy," according to its landmark nomination form prepared for the Highland Park Historical Commission in the 1980s.

"Heun specialized in designing large, historic revival style estates along Chicago’s North Shore," according to the 2004 city-commissioned Architectural Resources in Highland Park survey. A decade before the Highland Park home, Heun designed Mellody Farm for J. Ogden Armour. The 1,000-acre private estate later become Lake Forest Academy and a nature preserve. Although he was considered less adventurous than some of his colleagues in a group of early Prairie School architects known as the "the Eighteen," Heun's work showed an interesting blending of classical forms and the features of the emerging school of architecture around the turn of the 20th century, according to the survey.

"The house, although not a pure example of the style, is impressive," it said of the Lichtstern home. "The two-story stone residence features an irregular plan, which is not usually seen on Italian Renaissance Revival houses, and a low-pitched, multi-gable roof covered with ceramic tiles. A circular drive leads to an arcade that extends out from the body of the house and leads to the entrance, and a series of projecting bays break up the façade. Several of the multilight casement windows that punctuate the elevations are topped with segmental arches."

An undated historic listing from when the estate spanned 5 acres described the home as "easily one of the most distinctive in the entire Chicago area." It noted the Travatine marble hallway and staircase with Romanesque vaulting, hand-carved walnut in the library, inlaid marble floors and more. "The interior heightens the first impression of gracious hospitality," it said.

The main house currently sits on a 2.4-acre lot. The 14,200-square-foot mansion features a ballroom on the third floor, a music room, seven bedrooms and an elevator. The home also has a recently-repaired pool, according to its most recent listing, and members of the South Deere Park Homeowners Association have shared access to the beach below.

Realtor Aaron Fenton represented the most recent sellers of the house, who purchased out of foreclosure less than three years ago. He said a lot of potential buyers would have been interested in purchasing the property for the land value and tearing it down if the Lichtstern house was not provided with historic landmark status.

"It really is incredible, what went into it to build it originally back when it was built and I hope that the new buyer is able to restore some of that character and elegance that that house has," Fenton said.

Contractors have estimated the house will need upwards of $3 million in repairs, which include replacing to the leaking original roof, windows, plumbing, repairing damage water damage and a large stone terrace in the rear of the house, among other things. The house was sold "as-is."

The previous owner's research indicated the home served as a romantic retreat between the younger Lichtstern and famed opera singer Mary Garden, who would perform nearby at Ravinia, according to Crain's Chicago Business, which first reported its latest sale. Originally, the home only had two bedrooms, before subsequent owners remodeled the interior, according to a Chicago Tribune report that interviewed three sisters about growing up in the house in the 1960s.

In 1991, Mike and Robin Nasatir purchased the property for $2 million and embarked on a decade-long renovation costing more than $4 million on the property. Work included repairing erosion to the bluff that left the home perched above a vertical drop, they told Chicago Magazine in 2009 after offering it for sale at $7.75 million and for rent at $35,000 a month. But the house never sold, and Bank of America foreclosed on it and took over its title in 2015, Crain's reported.

Property records show the home was purchased from Bank of America for nearly $1.2 million in March 2017, with Alex Miller listed as the new owner. But ownership was transferred Vasyl and Olga Miroshnichenko via a quitclaim deed in December of that year. The Miroshnichenkos also had a prior ownership interest the house according to a property transfer history. The home most recently returned to the market in August 2018 asking for$2.2 million before coming off the market in February and closing for $800,000. The new owners are not identified in public records.

Earlier: Roaring 20s Love Nest In Highland Park Returns To Market

The main E. Lichstern house became a nationally registered landmark in 1982 and was listed by the city in 1987. It has also been included in the Illinois Historic Structures Survey, according to Highland Park city documents. The neighboring coach house at 103 S. Deere Park Drive on a subdivided 0.6-acre lot was named a local landmark in 2007.

Last year, the home's annual tax bill was approximately $30,000 after its assessed value fell from $4.9 million to $2.2 million in 2017, according to the Lake County Assessor's Office. It was not immediately clear if the home has is eligible for a state historical property tax freeze, which can be available for those spending more than a quarter of a home's fair market value on rehabbing owner-occupied landmarked homes.

• Address: 105 S. Deere Park Drive, Highland Park
• Sale Price: $800,000 on Sept. 10
• Square Feet: 14,286
• Bedrooms: 7
• Bathrooms: 5 full, 3 half
• Built: 1920
• Last Sold: $1.18 million in March 2017
• First Listed: $2.2 million in August 2018

Listing information originally appeared on Realtor.com, where more information and photos are available..