Coinciding with his journey out of town to take a network news anchoring job, WBBM-Channel 2 anchor Lester Holt has just placed his Lincoln Park home on the market for $1,050,000.
Holt, 41, was a fixture at Channel 2 since 1986 and was promoted to the 10 p.m. anchor slot — and the vaunted role as the station’s “principal news anchor” — in 1995, replacing Bill Kurtis. But he and co-anchor Linda MacLennan were demoted from the 10 p.m. slot in January in favor of Carol Marin, and the pair has worked afternoons ever since.
As first reported by the Tribune’s Jim Kirk on June 13, Holt has opted to leave the station after his contract extension ends Friday, and he is headed for New York, where he worked before joining Channel 2. He is taking a job as an anchor at the MSNBC cable network.
Holt’s nine-room, four-bedroom home in Lincoln Park was built in 1979 and designed by architect Marvin Ullman. The three-story house has “large open rooms with lots of light” and is “great for entertaining,” according to listing information.
The home has an all-new white granite kitchen with a breakfast room overlooking the yard, two decks, a two-car garage in front and all four bedrooms on one floor.
Holt purchased the home, which is just south of Fullerton Parkway and right around the corner from Kurtis’ own town home, for $650,000 in August 1991 from a bank trust at the same time that he sold his previous residence, a 63rd-floor unit in the John Hancock Center, for $335,000, according to public records.
Joanne Nemerovski of Koenig & Strey is Holt’s listing agent.
– White Sox head groundskeeper Roger Bossard is selling his three-year-old contemporary home in the Ruffled Feathers neighborhood of southwest suburban Lemont for $619,000.
Bossard comes from a family of baseball groundskeepers. His late father, Gene, was the head groundskeeper at Comiskey Park for 40 years before going into semiretirement and handing the job off to his son in 1983. His grandfather, Emil, was the head groundskeeper for the Cleveland Indians.
Bossard built the 10-room, four-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot home in Lemont’s luxury golf community. The house has a home theater system, complete with a 102-inch screen and elevated seating, a 52-inch TV in the family room, a white kitchen, accent mirrors, a wet bar, soaring ceilings and a two-way fireplace, according to listing information.
Bossard is moving because he is building a “more traditional” house across the street, said listing agent Joan Roman of Re/Max County Line.
“It’s a darling house, and very white,” Roman said. “If you like white, it’s very white, with railings, tile, cabinetry and carpeting all white. The house also has vaulted ceilings, and the exciting thing is the movie theater on the lower level, complete with a candy counter and popcorn machine.”
Bossard is not the only celebrity who lives in Ruffled Feathers. WLS-Channel 7 principal weather forecaster Jerry Taft lives just down the street from Bossard, in a house he purchased in 1994 for $750,000. And Zemira Z. Jones, president and general manager of WLS-AM and four other ABC-owned radio stations in Chicago, also lives down the street from Bossard, in a single-family house he bought in 1996 for $429,000, according to public records.
– Updates: Beach Boy Brian Wilson has lowered the asking price of his mansion in far west suburban St. Charles from $2,395,000 down to $1,999,999. The 23-room house, complete with recording studio, was featured here last October and is still listed with Arlene Witmer of Coldwell Banker.
Meanwhile, former Channel 5 sports anchor Amy Stone’s 119-year-old renovated Victorian in Lincoln Park, which was listed for $799,000 and featured here on April 30, recently closed for $780,000, according to public records. Sean Conlon and Jim Roth of Sussex & Reilly were the co-listing agents.
Finally, Palatine’s infamous Lyng house, where a Chicago newspaper columnist’s daughter disappeared in 1977 and was later found to have been murdered — even though no body was ever found — closed last month for $222,000. The house, featured here on April 9, had been listed for $234,900 with Brian Locascio of Baird & Warner.
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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
