This hunter of new places to buy and love traveled over the rivers and through the woods this year to way-out wonders in northwest suburban Huntley, south out to Country Club Hills, up north to Lincolnshire and way up to Gurnee.
But we also drove over and under railway tracks, up and down Lake Shore Drive and on all those thoroughfares leading to River North and River West and the South Loop to discover hidden treasures in Pilsen, sophisticated town homes on West Fulton Street and lofts where warehouses used to be on South Wabash Avenue.
It’s been a memorable year for new housing developments and conversions of old anything to condo units, soft lofts and wide open lofts. We’ve seen parking spaces selling for $50,000, raw condo spaces for a couple of million. We’ve had more readers asking, “Who are these people (that can afford these places)?” and “Where’s all this money coming from?” We wish we knew.
Among the pleasures of writing this column is discovering small pockets in the city that are being integrated into existing neighborhoods, or highly industrial sections in once or still gritty parts of the city that are being transformed into possibly trendy and chic enclaves.
There was St. John’s Park, an 82 town-home development on tiny Fry Street, west of Halsted Street, north of Chicago Avenue, just off Ogden Avenue. With the homes then base-priced from $376,900 to $519,900 for 2,193 to 2,800 square feet (including a double garage), Hunter deemed this area “just off-beat enough to be a little edgy.”
A recent visit showed more residential buildings goings going up, including the 950 W. Huron condominium that will be right in the back yard of St. John Cantius church and a neighbor to St. John’s Park.
During 2000, the Chicago River continued to lure home buyers to the downtown developments but it also saw the river attracting buyers farther from downtown, to new communities such as the Belmont River Club and one of our unexpected favorites, the River Walk, on Western Avenue between Belmont and Diversey Avenues. Its 64 lofts converted from an industrial structure sold out quickly. Some of the riverside town homes have views from their 17-by-13-foot living areas that, for some owners, rival a look at Lake Michigan. I couldn’t go that far, but the homes along the various banks of the Chicago River’s branches are more intriguing than I’d imagined.
Off in another direction, Pilsen Gateway at 16th and Halsted Streets is refreshing because it’s the first two-building condominium development in this grand old section of the city and the buildings can only be described as funky modern. A long, low-slung building actually looks as though it’s three buildings; that’s because the floors vary from three to five, with the end sections in red brick, the center covered with a corrugated metal.
In the suburbs, design elements that we enjoyed included the placement of town homes at Briarcourt Villas in Aurora. Six units are laid out in a U shape, with two at the front, two facing in toward a driveway/courtyard and two farthest back and facing the street as though they were at the curve of the U.
Another likeable town home community was Cobble Creek in far north suburban Gurnee. The attraction here, quite frankly, is the setting: It’s bordered on three sides by Heather Ridge, an established community of different styles of homes and mature trees and landscaping. The furnished model was over-glitzed, but others were finished and carpeted, all the better to see what the rooms looked like bereft of frou-frou.
Among favorite suburban developments, however, were the Village Green condominiums in Lincolnshire. The first of three four- and five- story buildings that eventually will have 108 units total is set away from the road. Its architecture with bays and recessed balconies is quite a bit more attractive than many condos with balconies hanging over each other. Also appealing, especially to people who prefer first-floor living: Some of those balconies are really porches with partially hidden steps leading down and out of the building.
This Village Green condo’s furnished model had one of the most striking, memorable design elements of anything I’d seen in a year of hunting. Both attention-grabbing sinks installed in the vanity of the master bath were Kohler’s curvy red cast iron ones called “vessel dolce vita” in “roussillon red.” Just a detail, but what a detail.
For good design in the city one of my votes would go to Fulton Court town homes in River West. The four-story homes have 10 1/2-foot ceilings in the living/dining/kitchen level, floor-to-ceiling bay windows and a minimum of 2 1/2 baths for even the smallest units.
Living spaces are wide open, airy, roomy. The kitchen, slightly partitioned from the living room, accommodates an island, many cabinets and counters and another bay that’s large enough for eating space. The interior design was knockout contemporary with beautifully crafted accents in both art works and unique pieces of furniture. Really my kind of stuff. They sold out quickly.
The year saw some of the most expensive properties ever to come on and disappear from the market.
In the city, the sales of condos in the Park Tower — above the recently opened Park Hyatt hotel just off North Michigan Avenue, west of the Water Tower — stunned even some of the most jaded folks in real estate. Every single unit was sold before condo construction began, even though prices started at $620,000 for a two-bedroom unit with nearly 2,000 square feet and went up to $3.5 million for raw space for an 8,400-square-foot, full-floor penthouse. Parking spaces sold for $40,000 each.
And, that was back in 1997 when the condos first went on the market, way before the housing market, especially in the city, began to really sizzle. All were sold by early 1999.
Not too incidentally, estimates for finishing and customizing those penthouses ranged from $2.8 million to $8 million. When do the house-warming parties begin? Haven’t been invited yet. Will certainly tell all if I even get a peek at one of these mansions in the sky more than 60 floors above ground .
The Big Bucks country equivalent — well, almost — to the city’s Park Tower in 2000 was the Tall Oaks of Kildeer community near northwest suburban Long Grove. The development’s 71 lots, averaging 1.35 acres and 150 feet wide, started at $175,000 and went to $375,000. Custom homes were expected to start at $750,000 and go beyond a million.
The amenities? Great old trees, three or four ponds, wetlands, conservation areas, wooded with walking paths and nature trails planned to wend their ways through the 160-acre site.
In general, I saw far too many three-car garages dominating the facades of houses and even pairs of two-car garages attached to townhouses; too many entries with steps practically barring a person from entering the residence; many too many spindle stairways. Decor, especially in — forgive me — suburban models, continued to be wildly extravagant for the most part, with forests of tasteless fake plants and the ever-present valances, draperies, tassels and doodads comprising “window treatments.”
On the plus side, more walls are being painted in soothing, earthy tones — subdued olive greens or khakis, gold and sand and taupe. Sometimes, only one wall or a portion of a room is covered with a color and, when handled deftly, this can be ultra smart. We’re also seeing more pale tans and milky browns as accent colors on walls. When walls are painted in Hershey’s bitter chocolate, however, the room can become threatening.
We’ve seen more bonus or flex or non-designated rooms than in years past, far more combined living/dining areas with an additional family room. Laundry rooms in houses seem to going from large to lavish and, in condos from “nice extra” to “must have.”
And, suburban sprawl — that outward pioneering to the territories just this side of Rockford– has its own citified counterpart, sort of an urban sprawl or crawl. As newly trendy areas fill up, the boundaries get sort of stretched by developers who hype them with ambiguous monikers. Pretty soon some development north of Hyde Park is probably going to be called South of South Loop, just as River West is becoming West River West and anything south of Rogers Park is sometimes described as North Lake View.
Happy New Year.
