These latest sellers got 63.7% of the $10.2 million that the house was listed for in October 2021. By the time the 10,400-square-foot house went under contract in March, the asking price had been cut to $7.95 million.
The sale closed May 31.
The seller owned the property through a land trust that conceals their name in public records, and the buyer isn’t yet in the records. Jenny Ames, the Engel & Voelkers Chicago agent who represented the seller, declined to comment. Mark Icuss, the Compass agent who represented the buyer, did not respond to a request for comment.
Built in 2010 on Scott Street, the house was the first new-construction single-family home in Illinois to be certified LEED Gold by the U.S. Green Building Council. The LEED program emphasizes reduced energy use, environmental impact and toxins.
The house uses a geothermal system that draws on the steady temperatures underground for heat in winter and cooling in summer. It has a green roof, interior staircases that double as light wells and insulation made from low-toxicity soy, and it was painted and finished with products low in volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.
Rainwater that falls on the house stays on-site, held in a cistern, from which it’s used to water the yard, planters on the terrace and the green roof, and to keep the courtyard pond full.
“It was purposely designed for healthy living,” Ames told Crain’s in an email in 2021. “Anyone who cares about living in a healthy environment (or in a house that is good for our environment) will be pleased.”
Gold Coast mansions have proven hard to sell for top prices for several years. The $7 million sale on Burton was the highest-priced mansion sale in the neighborhood since 2017, when philanthropist Ann Lurie sold her Dearborn Street mansion to the Latin School for $12 million. Because the buyer was a school, not a homeowner, it’s debatable whether that one even counts.
Despite the big discount that the Scott Street seller took, the deal was the fourth-highest-priced Chicago-area home sale so far in 2023.
For naysayers about the city, there’s this: The five highest-priced sales so far this year are all in Chicago, and of the 10 highest-priced sales, eight are in the city. The other two are in Lake Forest.