Two more members of the Bulls’ 1996-1998 championship teams are pulling up stakes and leaving town.
Former Bulls guard Ron Harper, who signed a two-year, $4.2 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers in October as a free agent, has just listed his 10-room contemporary home in Northbrook for $719,000, while former Bulls forward Jason Caffey is selling his Deerfield condo for $259,900.
Harper, 36, is a 14-year NBA veteran who now is playing for his former coach, Phil Jackson. He has had a solid presence thus far in this year’s NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers.
Caffey, who turned 27 on Monday, signed a seven-year, $35 million deal with the Golden State Warriors back in January 1999.
Built in 1988, Harper’s four-bedroom home, in the Oak Hill area of Northbrook, went on the market June 7. The custom-built contemporary, which Harper purchased in 1994 for $610,000, has a dramatic two-story living room with a 22-foot-high Lannon stone fireplace, a gourmet kitchen, and a finished lower level with a maid’s room. The property also has a landscaped and fenced yard, a custom deck and a security system.
Caffey’s six-room, second-floor condo, in the Manor Homes of Deerfield development, has three bedrooms, a large eat-in kitchen, in-unit laundry machines, vaulted ceilings, and a master bath with a skylight, a Jacuzzi and two sinks.
Buyers of the unit, which was built in 1991, also receive a $5,000 decorating allowance, according to listing information.
Harper and Caffey are merely the latest former Bulls from the club’s second “three-peat” to ditch the Chicago area altogether. They join former coach Phil Jackson and ex-teammates Steve Kerr and Luc Longley, all of whom have sold their houses in Lake County.
Current Bull and Chicago native Randy Brown still has his house in south suburban Olympia Fields on the market for $449,900 (Upper Bracket, Apr. 2), but reportedly plans to stay in the Chicago area.
Former Bull Toni Kukoc and current Bull Dicky Simpkins have thus far hung onto their places in Highland Park and Buffalo Grove, respectively. And the title teams’ twin titans, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, both have actually expanded their area real estate holdings since the beginning of 1998, with Jordan buying a $3 million penthouse at 1100 N. Lake Shore Dr. in Chicago in 1999 to complement his mansion in Highland Park, while Pippen in 1998 bought — and still owns — 10 acres of vacant land on Telegraph Road in Lake Forest in addition to his 21st-floor condominium at 1418 N. Lake Shore Dr. in Chicago.
Joan McGowan of Koenig & Strey has Harper’s listing, while Susan Levinson of Coldwell Banker is Caffey’s agent.
Harper apparently has not yet purchased any property in L.A., although he owns several other properties in suburban Cleveland, where he started his NBA career in 1986.
According to public records, Harper owns a house in Beachwood, Ohio, which he purchased for $207,000 in 1987, and a house in Pepper Pike, Ohio, which he bought for $565,000 in 1991.
Caffey paid just over $1 million last year for a single-family house in Oakland, Calif., according to public records.
Speaking of the Bulls, now is a good time to provide details — as promised last Nov. 7 — about the single-family house in Evanston that the team’s head coach, Tim Floyd, purchased late last year through a bank trust for $1.2 million.
Floyd’s 10-room house in northwest Evanston, which he purchased after selling a house in Deerfield for $610,000, was designed by architect Dwight Perkins and built in 1911.
The four-bedroom, Prairie-style house, which was listed at one point last summer for $1.2 million, has leaded windows with brass pulls, two fireplaces, and a new kitchen with a Carrara marble counter and a Viking stove. The house sits on a more than half-acre, landscaped property.
Floyd’s bank trust purchased the property from a former senior vice president with the now-merged Chicago & North Western Railroad.
– Update: The price of the Wilmette home owned by “Fox Thing in the Morning” anchors Bob Sirott and Marianne Murciano has been reduced from $649,900 to $599,000. That house, listed by Coldwell Banker’s Constance Snyder, was featured here March 12.
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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
