If you`re looking to buy a home in a neighborhood crammed with intellectual people, the townhouse at 1527 W. Harrison St. in Chicago`s University Village area might be ideal.
The four-story Victorian rowhouse is one of 80 red brick townhouses and 40 condominiums in the Garibaldi Square development between the University of Illinois at Chicago`s east and west campuses. Within a few blocks are Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke`s Medical Center, Whitney Young High School and Andrew Jackson Language Academy, an elementary school.
More than 50 percent of of Garibaldi Square residents are university faculty members, said Carmen Gallucci, owner of C. Gallucci Realty, which is listing the home for $309,000 and held an open house there last weekend.
The 4-year-old Garibaldi complex recently earned developer Charles Shaw an award for urban development from the Urban Land Institute.
Besides offering a variety of scholarly neighbors, there are other advantages to the townhouse`s location, the most noticeable being its proximity to many arts and entertainment venues in the Loop, just a mile to the east.
The home would also offer its new owners a choice of transportation methods, given that it`s near two elevated train lines, numerous bus routes and the Kennedy and Eisenhower Expressways.
Tasteful living
In addition, Garibaldi Square is sandwiched between two famous culinary neighborhoods; Greektown to the northeast on Halsted Street and Taylor Street`s Italian restaurants to the south. Chinatown is a five-minute drive.
”So you never get tired of eating around here,” said Gallucci.
The home itself is a tall, contemporary place with an all-white interior accented by honey-colored oak floors, molding and stair railings.
There are lots of scuff marks on all the walls, which will be painted over in a color chosen by the new owners as part of the purchase agreement, said selling agent Robert Lara.
The only exception to the home`s light, neutral decor is the formal black and white marble floor in the home`s main-floor foyer.
The first floor is fairly compact, consisting of only a door to the attached one-car garage, a coat closet in the stairwell, a narrow storage room across from the closet, and, just beyond that, a 20-by-12-foot family room.
Fireplace and bar
The family area has the same light-gray carpet that covers the home`s stairs and bedroom floors. The room also has a gas fireplace with an off-white ceramic tile hearth and a wet bar consisting of a light-gray cabinet and sink combination built into the wall.
Because of the water hookup behind the wet bar, the adjacent storage room could be converted into a laundry room, Lara said.
The room also has a glass atrium door that opens to a concrete courtyard surrounded by two wood side walls and a back brick wall with a metal gate that locks.
But if you`re interested in the most attractive space in the home, you`ll have to go upstairs to the second floor, which consists of a 27-by-20 living room and a 15-by-13 kitchen, with a bathroom in between.
The living room to the right of the stairs is particularly appealing because of its expanse of shiny oak flooring, which ends at a floor-to-ceiling bay window that offers a view of the entire Loop.
The only other feature in the room is a gas fireplace shown off by recessed lighting in the ceiling above.
To the immediate left of the stairs is a plain bathroom with white cabinets like those that line two walls of the kitchen.
Island kitchen
But instead of white counters, as in the bathroom, the kitchen has speckled black, white and pink counters that look like stone. In the center of the kitchen is a large island that could be used as a breakfast bar if stools were added.
On the kitchen`s far wall is a large sliding glass door leading out onto a wood balcony with a view of Harrison Street to the north and a neighboring brick building to the west.
The kitchen also has a door to the home`s utility room, which houses the furnace and water heater along with hookups for a washer and dryer.
The third floor is split into three sleeping quarters, two of which are adjacent 11-by-10 bedrooms, each with a window and a double-folding door closet.
Outside of these rooms, at the head of the stairs, is a full bathroom with an off-white ceramic tile floor, white cabinets and a long mirror above the sink.
Room to spread out
To the right of these rooms is the 14-by-13 master bedroom suite, which has a plain, full bathroom and a huge walk-in closet with plenty of room for stacking and hanging clothes.
The bedroom has cathedral ceilings and is just above the living room, which means it, too, has a skyline view visible through a three-pane window.
Within the room is the stairway leading to the 14-by-11 fourth-floor loft, which is just under the peaked roof and has two skylights.
From this room, you can look over a ledge and down into the master bedroom, or over the wood railing and down the open stairwell to the marble foyer three floors below.
The room feels like a private, cozy nest at the top of a very tall tree.
