Seller Takes $3 Million Loss On Art Deco Mansion In Winnetka

WINNETKA, IL — A 90-year-old Art Deco mansion renovated last decade by prominent local architectural firm sold earlier this month for nearly $3 million below its 2009 sale price.

Featuring an original limestone facade, the 12,000-square-foot house sits on a 1.5-acre lot at the end of a private drive in the Indian Hill neighborhood.

The home includes six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and an attached four-car garage. There are separate guest quarters and a private master suite overlooking a fountain and garden.

The redesigned home "exudes streamlined deco sophistication," according to its listing, with custom millwork and leaded windows.

The home was designed by architect Clifford Shopbell and built during 1927 and 1928 for the family of George Consolves, according to listing agent Sharon Friedman.

In 2005, the home was featured in Architectural Digest after a gut renovation by a team from Tigerman McCurry Architects. Completed in 1992, the reconstruction added a door to the dining room and totally redid the kitchen, architect Margaret McCurry told the magazine.

The house was last sold in 2009 for $6.2 million, records show, when Robert F. Steel purchased the property from developer J. Paul Beitler, who had owned it since the 1980s. At the time of the sale, Chicago Magazine reported one of the home's earliest owners was Joseph E. Magnus, the president of Puritan Malt Extract company in Chicago, which later merged with Pabst brewing.

In 2012, Steel and his brother and sold Lemont-based K.A. Steel Chemicals for $328 million in cash to Olin, a chemical and ammunition maker based in a suburb of St. Louis. After being founded by their father in 1953, K.A. Steel grew to become the largest maker of bleach in the Midwest.

A trust in Steel's name first put the home up for sale nearly two years ago, listing it with a $5.5 million asking price. The asking price was thrice reduced, eventually falling to $4.25 million.

Earlier this month, the sale was listed as pending, and it closed April 17 at more than $3.212 million. No information about the home's new owners was immediately available in public records.

According to the Cook County Assessor's Office, the property's 2019 estimated market value for taxable purposes was $1.8 million. Its annual property tax bill was about $65,000 last year.

• Address: 919 Hill Road, Winnetka
• Built: 1929
• Lot Size: 1.25 acres lot
• Square Feet: 12,000
• Bedrooms: 6
• Bathrooms: 7 full, 2 half
• Last Sold: $6.2 million in March 2009
• First Listed: $5.5 million in June 2018
• Final Sale Price: $3,212,500 in April 2020

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