Mid-Century Mansion With Classical Influences Sells For $3.5M

LAKE FOREST, IL — A lakefront estate designed by Walter Frazier sold last week for $3.5 million. Its closing price was $350,000 higher than the property's 2017 sale price but nearly $1.5 million below the amount its sellers asked for it a year ago.

Built in 1962 on a wooded four-acre lot above a 400-foot beach, the seven-bedroom brick house's design combines classical influences with modernist elements.

The two-story home includes an outdoor pool and pool house with its own basement outside the home's master suite, according to its listing.

The interior features original steel floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors with lakefront views, as well as a green house and solarium.

"Even the tree house has lake views," the listing said.

The home has five fireplaces, and an attached, heated garage with room for three cars, according to the listing. The property also includes a rare lakefront boathouse, which has been grandfathered into compliance with local regulations, it said.

Frazier's design for a New Formalist-style Palladian villa has been extensively restored by the firms Vinci Hamp Architects and Futurity, according to its listing.

Frazier (1895-1976) trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and worked for David Adler, who built many country homes for Chicago's wealthy elite ahead of the Great Depression.

Though he did not become as famous as Adler, Frazier's work was featured in architectural journals and he developed a large clientele of Lake Forest residents, who hired him to design their large estates, according to the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society, which published a book about Frazier's work.

The Stone Gate Lane property was purchased for $3.17 million in 2017 by Christopher Hunt, according to county records. It was listed for sale in April 2019 for nearly $5 million.

It was most recently listed in December 2019 for $4.4 million, went under contract in February and closed last week, according to multiple listing service records. The identity of the buyers was not immediately available.

The estimated market value of the property was nearly $5.35 million last year, according to the Lake County Assessor's Office. Its annual property tax bill exceeded $107,000.

The property is the most expensive sold in Lake Forest so far this year and the most expensive in the city since Nancy Hughes spent $12 million on a Cape Cod-style lakefront estate in 2018.

Lake Forest's next-priciest home sale of 2020 so far was the Jan. 9 closing of a lakefront 1928 Dutch Colonial designed by David Adler. Anne Hunting had been trying to sell the Lake Road property for more than a decade, first listing it for $9.675 million in 2007 before it was eventually purchased by David and Kristin Keenan for $3.25 million.

Last month in neighboring Lake Bluff, singer Richard Marx and actress Cynthia Rhodes closed the sale of their Adler-designed Lake Bluff property for $4.2 million, more than five years after divorcing and listing the house with an $18 million asking price.

Find more recently sold Lake Forest homes »

• Address: 33 Stone Gate Lane, Lake Forest, Illinois
• Built: 1962
• Lot Size: 4.06 acres
• Square Feet: 10,746
• Bedrooms: 7
• Bathrooms: 7 full, 4 half
• Last Sold: $3.15 million in June 2017
• First Listed: $4.975 million in April 2019
• Sale Price: $3.5 million on April 10, 2020.

Listing information originally appeared on realtor.com. For more information and photos, click here.