Nancy Hughes' Former Lake Forest Home Sells For $2.9 Million

LAKE FOREST, IL — A former home of the late local philanthropist Nancy Hughes sold this week for $2.9 million — $2.3 million below the price she paid for it over a decade ago.

The six-bedroom, 7,445-square-foot, English-style mansion sits on a nearly about a block from Lake Michigan. It has been on the market since February 2018, when Hughes purchased a 3.4-acre lakefront estate for $12 million.

Hughes bought the just-sold Woodland Road home for $5.2 million a couple months after the death of her famed filmmaker husband, Northbrook native John Hughes.

The property's previous owner, Robert Shaw, a developer who built the home in 2005, had lived in it for a time before selling it to Hughes, according to the Chicago Tribune's Elite Street column, which first reported the sale.

Accessible behind a gated entrance and circular drive, the home features a Ludowici clay tile roof, French limestone floors, stone countertops and high ceilings with a "classic, yet current design," according to its listing.

Its exterior includes bluestone patios, a saltwater spa and grounds designed by Lake Bluff-based Mariani Landscaping, with lush gardens and mature trees.

The 17-room home also has an elevator, theater room, a three-and-a-half car heated garage and a finished lower level with about 2,500 square feet of additional space, its listing said.

Designed by Lake Forest-based Guedtner & Melichar Architects, the Woodland Road home received an award for infill construction in 2007 from the Lake Forest Preservation Society, which described it as an Arts and Crafts-style design that achieves a "more organic appearance" by taking its shape and stature from the triangular site and nearby ravine.

In 2018, Crain's Chicago Business first reported the $12 million sale of Hughes' Mayflower Road estate, which would turn out to be the last Lake Forest home she would buy. The next year, Elite Street identified Hughes as the buyer behind Vista Del Lago LLC, the property's Delaware-based purchasing entity.

That property — the most expensive purchased in Lake Forest for over a decade — has not been publicly listed for sale.

The 11,255-square-foot Westminster Road mansion where Hughes lived at the time of her husband's death was first listed for nearly $5.9 million in 2011.

After it failed to attract a buyer, Hughes donated it in 2014 to Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital to help fund the construction of its new hospital. The hospital sold it the following year for $4 million to Fields Auto Group President Dan Fields, and his wife, Amy, records show.

RELATED: Lake Forest Philanthropist Nancy Hughes Dies At 68

Hughes died in September 2019 at the age of 68. At the time, Lake Forest Mayor George Pandaleon credited her with "foundational" contributions to the city, improving it in a permanent way with gifts to the hospital, Gorton Community Center, Deerpath Golf Course and the Hughes Gateway beach access road, completed shortly before her death.

• Address: 745 E Woodland Rd, Lake Forest, Illinois
• Square Feet: 7,445
• Lot Size: 1.24 acres
• Bedrooms: 6
• Bathrooms: 7 full, 4 half
• Built: 2006
• Last Sold: $5.2 million in October 2009
• First Listed: $4.49 million in February 2018
• Sale Price: $2.9 million on Aug. 10

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