Former White Sox outfielder Dan Pasqua has sold his 11-room single-family house in Burr Ridge for $829,000 and an adjoining vacant lot for $179,000. He also has paid $1.32 million for a single-family house in Ridgefield, Conn.
Pasqua, 39, played in the major leagues from 1985 to 1994, earning a reputation as a slugger–he hit the longest home run in the history of new Comiskey Park, a 483-foot drive in 1991.
However, he couldn’t hit for average and, while his final seven years were with the White Sox, he spent most of 1994 on the disabled list after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.
His career’s rather ignominious end–no team offered him a major-league contract–came after the baseball strike ended in early 1995, when he was one of a group of veterans who were unwanted by major-league clubs and were relegated to working out at the baseball players union’s unsigned-players camp in Homestead, Fla.
Before his career ended, though, Pasqua made the most of his earning power, collecting salaries of $800,000 in 1991, $2.5 million in 1992 and $1.75 million both in 1993 and in 1994. In all, he earned a reported $7.58 million as a White Sox player from 1988 to 1994.
In Burr Ridge, Pasqua paid $700,000 in late 1993 for the Victorian in the exclusive Devon Ridge neighborhood. He then paid $160,000 nine months later for the adjoining vacant lot.
While buying those properties, Pasqua sold his single-family house in the Palos Oaks area of Palos Park for $375,000.
Separately, Pasqua also paid $141,000 last year for a single-family house in south suburban Crestwood. He also owns property in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Pasqua had listed his house in the Devon Ridge enclave for $865,000, according to information from listing agent Jackie Dougherty of Re/Max Elite.
The five-bedroom house, which was built in 1989, contains four fireplaces, a three-story foyer, five-piece crown moldings, vaulted ceilings, front and back staircases and a finished walk-out basement.
Devon Ridge’s other celebrity residents have included former Channel 2 anchor Adele Arakawa, who in 1999 sold her nine-room Georgian down the street from Pasqua’s former home for $430,000.
No information was available about Pasqua’s new house in Connecticut.
WGN-AM blood-and-guts police reporter Larry Schreiner is selling his contemporary, single-family house on five acres in Barrington Hills for $649,000. Schreiner, a former Chicago policeman, has been WGN’s roving crime reporter for more than 30 years.
He’s planning to stay in the Barrington area, but “wants something smaller,” said Joanie Mitchell of Re/Max. She and her husband, Tom Mitchell, are Schreiner’s co-listing agents.
The 11-room house, which was built in 1974 but has been updated throughout, includes a two-level master bedroom, a family room measuring 64 feet by 34 feet, and “an open and spacious floor plan,” Mitchell said.
The master suite overlooks the entire property, and includes a private study with a fireplace and a separate spa room. Outside is a private pond with a waterfall.
“The house was originally four bedrooms, but was turned into a three-bedroom house,” Mitchell said. “It could easily be turned back into a four-bedroom house.”
Schreiner is just one of many celebrities residing in the Barrington area, which has become particularly popular in recent years among nationally known entertainers.
Among Barrington-area residents are talk-show host Jenny Jones, who paid $515,000 in 1994 for a house in Barrington Hills; Los Angeles-based radio personality and onetime child actor Danny Bonaduce, who recently has rented out the Barrington Hills house that he purchased in 1994 for $675,000; and film director Neil LaBute, who paid $540,000 in 1998 for a single-family house on Illinois Highway 59 in Barrington (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
In addition, two Chicago Bear Hall of Famers have made the area their home. The late Walter Payton lived in South Barrington, while Mike Singletary in 1998 built a large house for his family a few blocks from Payton’s. Singletary went on a property-buying spree in 2000, paying a total of $865,000 for four single-family houses in Barrington, according to public records. Singletary’s intended use for those four properties is not known.
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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
