Casino Magnate's Daughter Sells Winnetka Mansion For $4.1 Million

WINNETKA, IL — In one of the North Shore's most expensive real estate transactions of the year, the daughter of a billionaire casino magnate and her husband sold a Winnetka mansion for $4.1 million Monday.

Meredith Bluhm-Wolf and William Wolf purchased the property on Sunset Road 15 years ago for nearly $3.1 million. They listed it in May with an asking price of $4.65 million. Its buyers have not yet been identified.

The 8,900-square foot, five-bedroom contemporary home was built in 1992 on a 0.93-acre lot. It was later renovated by the Chicago-based firm Marvin Herman & Associates, and its grounds were designed by the award-winning architect and professor Xavier Vendrall.

The property offers the "best outdoor space in the North Shore," boasted a listing from agent Jena Radney that described the home as "like a piece of art" and "purely magical."

Outside, there are three tiers of outdoor sitting and entertaining areas and a firepit beside the floor-to-ceiling windows of an indoor pool. The second floor includes four bedrooms and a second family room, while the master suite is "pure heaven," filled with light from oversized glass windows, according to the listing.

According to the Cook County Assessor's Office, the property's estimated 2019 market value for taxing purposes was less than $2.4 million, down from nearly $3.8 million the prior year. Its annual tax bill was more than $91,000 last year.

Bluhm-Wolf and her two siblings have ownership stakes in Rivers Casino in Des Plaines and are listed as "key persons" on its casino license, according to the Illinois Gaming Board. In March, Louisville-based racetrack and casino company Churchill Downs announced the purchase of 61 percent of Rivers Casino for $407 million dollars. The gaming board approved the sale despite its current owners' failure to meet a statutory requirement to sell stocks to women and minority investors, Capitol News Illinois reported.

With annual revenue of $400 million, Rivers Casino has the highest gross income of any of the state's "riverboat" casinos. Its lobbyists were closely involved in the drafting of this year's gambling expansion in Illinois and managed to insert a delay of 18 months before daily fantasy sports gambling websites could enter the market. Its parent company, Rush Street Gaming, also owns casinos in upstate New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Along with Churchill Downs, it has submitted a proposal to develop a new casino in Waukegan permitted by the gambling expansion.

Earlier: Daughter Of Billionaire Casino Magnate Lists Winnetka Mansion

The home sale is the second-most expensive in the village so far this year. In April, 635 Blackthorn Road, a newly constructed 8,200-square-foot home built by the Birov family's Heritage Luxury Homes — builders of many multi-million-dollar properties on the site of demolished North Shore homes — was sold for $4.175 million to a trust that conceals its owner's identity. The most expensive suburban home sale of 2019 so far is the $5.1 million purchase of a lakefront home built by prolific local modernist architect Tony Grunsfeld at 325 Shoreline Court in Glencoe.

• Address: 905 Sunset Road, Winnetka
• Sale Price: $4.1 million
• Lot Size: 0.93 acres
• Square Feet: 8,900
• Bedrooms: 5
• Bathrooms: 4 full, 3 half
• Built: 1992
• Last Sold: $3.086 million in November 2004
• First Listed: $4.65 million in May 16

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