Northwestern University head men’s basketball coach Bill Carmody has paid $1.45 million for a 12-room colonial in Wilmette.
Carmody was named Northwestern’s head coach in September after coaching Princeton University’s men’s basketball team to two Ivy League championships in four years and producing a 35-game conference winning streak.
Carmody replaced Kevin O’Neill, who quit to take an assistant coaching job with the New York Knicks.
Built in 1917, Carmody’s house in Wilmette has six bedrooms and two fireplaces. Other features include a new kitchen and a raised, circular bluestone terrace with a seating wall and built-in illumination. The house originally was listed for $1.725 million over the summer, and then was taken off the market.
In October, it was listed again for $1.495 million, which remained the listing price until Carmody’s offer.
Before taking the Northwestern job, Carmody had spent his entire life in the New York-New Jersey area. No information was available yet on whether Carmody sold a house he had owned in New Jersey.
Jean Burow of Bradbury, Romey, Egan & Partners represented the sellers of the Wilmette home.
“It was an absolutely spectacular property,” Burow said. “Its room sizes are larger than most houses, and it has high ceilings, a very large living room and an all-new kitchen. Everything has been re-done.”
Claire Sucsy of Coldwell Banker’s Evanston office represented Carmody. Citing her client’s privacy, she declined to comment on the purchase.
In a separate transaction, O’Neill recently sold his Sheridan Road condominium for $247,500 to Bulls assistant coach Norm Ellenberger. O’Neill had paid $219,000 for the condo in June 1998 after a divorce.
Previously, O’Neill and his then-wife had paid $855,000 in July 1997 for a single-family house at 920 Edgemere Ct. in Evanston. O’Neill sold the Edgemere house in March 1999 for $895,000.
– Update: A Victorian mansion in Wicker Park that once was Chicago’s Polish consulate has just sold for $900,000. Known as the “Paderewski House,” the more than 100-year-old house at 2138 W. Pierce Ave. was featured here last April 2, after it was listed for $1.3 million.
Chuck Michalak of the Broz Group at Keller Williams Fox handled the sale. The couple who purchased the house plan to restore it to a single-family residence, Michalak said.
The mansion’s original features include multiple stained glass window groupings; a massive, ornate staircase; and a Tiffany ceiling fixture. The lower level has a large dining room with beamed ceilings, original light fixtures and wood trim and moldings dating to 1884.
Pianist Ignace Paderewski inspired the mansion’s nickname by giving an afternoon concert at the mansion in the 1930s while it was Chicago’s Polish consulate. The property includes a two-story coach house and a three-lot parcel.
– Around the U.S.: The celebrated former home of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy in McLean, Va., is back on the market, for $15 million. Hong Kong billionaire Eric Hotung in 1997 paid $6 million — more than $1 million over its $4.975 million asking price — for the storied, 6.5-acre property at 636 Chain Bridge Rd. in the Washington suburb.
Chain Bridge Road is home to many members of Washington elite, including Kennedy neighbor and former Sen. Chuck Robb, Saudi Arabian ambassador Prince Bandar, Kennedy’s own sister-in-law, Ethel Kennedy, and — just across the street from her — Vice President Dick Cheney, who paid $1.35 million for his house in January 2000.
Reportedly, the septuagenarian Hotung decided the former senator’s 11,000-square-foot, gray-shingled house, which sits on the Potomac River, suffered from “bad feng shui,” according to news accounts.
Last year, Hotung, who sold his own mansion in Hong Kong for $94 million shortly after he bought Kennedy’s spread, was considering tearing down the McLean estate’s main, six-bedroom, nine-bathroom house.
Kennedy’s staff reportedly was surprised by the news of a possible demolition, especially because the home, which Kennedy built in 1962, has hosted many world leaders, including Presidents Reagan and Clinton, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Instead, Hotung opted to put the house up for sale. Kennedy and his wife, Victoria, paid $2.775 million in 1998 for a house in northwest Washington’s Kalorama neighborhood. After it was refurbished, Kennedy’s new house was the subject of a 10-page spread in the November 1999 Architectural Digest.
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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, IL 60611. E-mail: rgoldsbo@enteract.com
