Academy Award-nominated actress and Evanston native Joan Cusack and her husband, Chicago attorney Richard Burke, have sold their Lake Shore Drive condominium for $310,000, according to public records, and have moved farther north.
Cusack, 35, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for “In & Out” (1997) and for Best Supporting Actress for “Working Girl” (1988). Cusack, who has starred with her brother, actor/scriptwriter John Cusack, in “Grosse Point Blank,” “Broadcast News,” “Grandview U.S.A.,” “Sixteen Candles,” “Say Anything” and “Stars and Bars,” has appeared in movies since her 1980 debut in “My Bodyguard.”
She recently wrapped “Arlington Road,” a thriller that also stars Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins and is due out in November. Upcoming plans for the actress, whose permanent home is in Chicago–which she has called “a normal city”–and not in Los Angeles, include starring in a possible sitcom for CBS that would be filmed here.
“The disadvantage to living in Chicago is that I can’t be out there politicking and making the roles happen for myself,” Cusack said in a story in the Tribune last year. “The advantage is that I get to have a great, normal life. So, I just have to work a little harder to have an interesting career.”
Through a bank trust last year, Cusack and Burke paid $550,000 for a historic, three-bedroom home in the Ravenswood neighborhood that had been listed for $559,000, according to the Multiple Listing Service. Although Burke declined to comment on plans for the house, the couple reportedly is performing renovations on the more than 80-year-old home, which they purchased from a couple who moved to Lake Forest.
In more recent months, Cusack and Burke have unloaded their previous home, a seventh-floor unit at 540 N. Lake Shore Drive, for $310,000, according to public records. The couple purchased the condominium in 1992 for $240,500, according to public records. The seven-story, former industrial building originally was constructed as a warehouse in 1912, and was converted to lofts in the 1980s.
Joan Cusack is not the only member of her family who has been a top-floor dweller in downtown Chicago. John Cusack’s present digs here are a 1,600-square-foot, four-room, two-bedroom unit on the top floor of a 57-story Near North Side building. He bought that unit in late 1996 for $453,300, according to public records, and also has owned a house in Malibu, Calif. The Cusacks’ parents, Richard and Nancy, still live in Evanston.
The Cusacks are only two of a slew of national entertainment figures who own property or live in the Chicago area. Among the others are singer Richard Marx, who lives in Mettawa; Lake Forest’s Mr. T, who still owns his Green Bay Road estate but principally lives in California; actor Chris O’Donnell, who owns a Lake View town home; talk-show host Jerry Springer, who towers over the city from his leased condo at the top of the John Hancock Center; talk-show host Jenny Jones, who owns a home in Barrington; actor Daniel J. Travanti, who moved from L.A. to Lake Forest several years ago; actor/director Harold Ramis, who paid $1.9015 million for a home in Glencoe in 1996; director John Hughes, who lives in Lake Forest; and actress Jeri Ryan, who lives on Sheridan Road in Wilmette.
Other locally based folks with high profiles in the entertainment world are actor Jeremy Piven, who recently bought a place in Chicago; actor Fred Williamson, who spends most of his time in L.A., but reportedly owns a place here; singer Liz Phair, who owns a $500,000-plus home in Lincoln Park; Beach Boy Brian Wilson, whose home when he’s not in Beverly Hills is a million-dollar abode in St. Charles; and several members of the Smashing Pumpkins, who were profiled in this column on July 12.
– Update: The luxury model spec home in Vernon Hills that once was listed for $750,000 was auctioned off recently for $566,500, according to auction sources.
As we reported here on May 31, auction house Sheldon Good & Co. sold Ferris Homes’ “New Haven” single-family model at 1715 N. Pebble Beach Way. While Ferris officials had noted that selling the home via the auction was not a “distress sale” but rather a marketing venue, the selling price clearly indicated that the four-bedroom home initially was overvalued.
———-
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, IL 60611. E-mail: rgoldsbo@enteract.com
