Chicago Bears tackle Andy Heck has sold his home in Winnetka for $1.45 million and has bought a mansion of more than 8,000 square feet a few blocks to the northeast for $2 million, according to public records.
Heck, 31, signed a three-year, $9 million extension in April 1997 to continue playing for the Bears, who he joined in 1994 after signing a four-year, $10 million deal. A Notre Dame standout who is considered a leader in the locker room, Heck has local ties to Winnetka, where his wife, Jennifer, grew up.
Heck’s choice of Winnetka as a home town is unusual for the Bears, whose players’ residences largely are scattered in suburbs farther north or west. Former Bear–and Heck’s former Notre Dame teammate–Pat Eilers is believed to be the only other current or former Bear living in Winnetka, whose other significant athlete-resident is Chicago Cub Kevin Tapani.
Heck’s new house originally was listed for $2.2 million and was owned by architect Paul Konstant. The four-year-old, 15-room home has five bedrooms and sits on a “lushly landscaped lot” down a winding private lane in east Winnetka, according to listing information.
The home the Hecks sold was built in 1994 and has 12 rooms and five bedrooms. The Hecks benefited from a hot real estate market and a whopping four offers on the home, according to a real estate source. The brick Georgian, which the Hecks bought before it was completed in 1994 for $1.295 million, sold for $55,000 above its listing price.
“It is a beautiful house in great condition,” said agent Blanche Romey of Bradbury, Romey, Egan, who listed the Hecks’ old house. “The weight room inside was to die for.”
Although Jennifer Heck refused to comment on the reason for the move, Romey noted that the family has grown, especially since Jennifer gave birth to triplets in November 1996. The Hecks now have four children.
“With two girls, I’ll have a couple of weddings and a bunch of college educations to pay for,” Andy Heck said after the triplets were born. “I’ve got to keep playing until I get a letter of rejection from every team in the league.”
Marion Powers of Village Green Realty had the listing for the Hecks’ new home.
– Former “Chicago Tonight” correspondent and backup host Phil Ponce has sold his home in east Wilmette for $565,000.
Last year, Ponce, 48, left the WTTW-Channel 11 program, where he served for five years as a correspondent and as the principal backup to host John Callaway, to join “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” as a Washington-based national correspondent. He may be best-known to Chicago viewers, though, as a general assignment reporter at Channel 2, where he worked from 1982 to 1991. He recently was named 1998 journalist of the year by Northern Illinois University’s department of communications, and he also wrote monthly columns for the Chicago Tribune in 1996 and 1997.
Ponce’s nine-room, five-bedroom center entry stucco home was listed for $599,000 and was on the market for just nine days. The 85-year-old home recently was expanded, according to listing information, to add a new kitchen, family room and bayed breakfast area. The home sits on a brick paved street and has “a lovely front porch overlooking a large lot,” according to listing information.
Mary Minogue of Coldwell Banker had the listing.
– Around the U.S.: Baseball star Gary Sheffield, whose St. Petersburg mansion was profiled in Upper Bracket on March 8, has chosen to keep Florida as his base, even though he was traded from the Florida Marlins to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The publicist for the $61 million outfielder has said Sheffield “definitely” will keep his waterfront mansion on Pinellas Point, and come back to it in the off-season. “This is his home,” she told a local newspaper.
Apparently, Sheffield will follow L.A. Laker Shaquille O’Neal, who decided, after leaving the Orlando Magic to go to Los Angeles in 1996, to keep his $4 million, 25,000-square-foot mansion about 10 miles west of Orlando.
Of course, in Shaq’s case, the neighbors may have had something to do with it. He lives in Windermere, Fla., in the exclusive, 197-home Isleworth development, whose residents read like a Who’s Who of sports. Neighbors include golfers Mark O’Meara and Tiger Woods, basketball players Penny Hardaway and Dennis Scott and baseball players Orel Hershiser and Ken Griffey Jr.
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Have a tip about a home sale or a piece of property being put on the market that involved a well-known Chicagoan or a well-known piece of Chicago real estate? Write to Upper Bracket, c/o Chicago Tribune, Real Estate section, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill., 60611. E-mail: rgoldsbo@enteract.com
