A seven-bedroom mansion on a 1.77-acre property on Lake Michigan in Winnetka sold on Tuesday for its $12 million asking price, taking the top spot as the Chicago area’s highest sale price of 2025.
Initially listed last year for $16 million and later reduced to $12 million, the 9,653-square-foot mansion was constructed in 2020 by builder Scott Lyon & Co. and designed by architect Paul Konstant. It was built on the site of an earlier, now-demolished mansion that had been constructed in 1991 for the late philanthropists Ann and Robert Lurie.
The mansion has eight full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, an elevator, a sport court, a theater, a golf simulator, a large playroom, a heated three-car garage and large screened porch and multiple patios. The property also has an attached guest house and about 90 feet of frontage on Lake Michigan.
The sellers, Luke and Maggie Kelly, in 2017 paid $6.187 million through a land trust to buy the property from former Corus Bank CEO Robert Glickman, who bought the earlier mansion and 1.77-acre site in 1997 for $5.5 million. The Kellys first placed the lakefront property on the market through an agents-only private network in November for $16 million. They then listed it publicly in February for $12 million.
Listing agent Cricket King did not respond to a request for comment on the sale. The buyers, who are still unidentified, were represented by Jena Radnay of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate. She could not be reached for comment.
The Cook County Assessor’s office assigns the property a fair market value of $9.8 million.
The mansion had a $249,916 property tax bill in the 2024 tax year.
The mansion tops the year’s prior highest-priced sale, which was of a 23rd-floor, full-floor penthouse atop a Gold Coast tower, which former Fortune Brands CEO Bruce Carbonari and his wife, Kate, sold in March for around $10 million to a still-unidentified buyer who used an opaque land trust to mask his or her identity. That condo sold for $10.125 million according to the real estate multiple listing service, whose transaction figures can include personal property items like furniture, while the recorded sale price for the real estate itself was $9.784 million, according to the Cook County Clerk.
This year’s second-highest-priced sale occurred on June 6, when Reyes Beverage Group CEO Tom Day sold a six-bedroom, 8,086-square-foot lakefront mansion in Winnetka for $9.575 million to a still-unidentified buyer. Day had sought $10.3 million for that mansion.
The year’s ultimate highest-priced sale could be for much higher, as retired investment banker Muneer Satter’s lakefront mansion in Winnetka is listed for $35 million and has a contract to sell. And as Elite Street recently reported, mortgage-industry entrepreneur Dmitry Godin and his wife Victoria’s mansion on Lake Michigan in Winnetka has just been listed for $29.9 million. This activity all takes place in Winnetka at the same time as what surely is the region’s highest-priced home on the lake in the village is being constructed by Justin Ishbia, with a combined land cost and estimated construction cost of $77.7 million.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
