One-Time Evanston Home of Former NU Coach Under Contract at $3M

Someone has bought a piece of Evanston real estate that was perhaps considered a congratulatory purchase for a Big 10 football title and a trip to the Rose Bowl by one of its former owners.

The five-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot home at 643 Sheridan Road once owned by former Northwestern University football coach Gary Barnett was put on the market in October through a listing with agent Sally Mabida’s Berkshire Hathaway Home Services group based in the North Shore suburb, the Chicago Tribune reported. It was put under contract within several days at a listing price of $3 million.

Barnett won a Big 10 title as head coach of the Wildcats in 1995, earning a trip to the Rose Bowl, where his team fell to the University of Southern California shortly before he bought the home for $814,000 in 1996. He and his wife sold it for $995,000 in 1999.

The current sellers are seeking to more than double their money from when they bought the home for $1.25 million in 2011.

The home was built in 1968 and designed by architect Harry Shaxted, who studied under the German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The current owners, listed in public records as trusts overseen by the men who made the 2011 purchase, Steven A. Wojtanowski and Jeremy Davis, have updated the property, with new hardwood and marble floors throughout. It also has a sauna on its second floor, a hidden bar behind bookcases in a family room, three fireplaces, and three full bathrooms and two half bathrooms.

Other high-end listings in Evanston include former Chicago Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish’s home at 90 Kedzie Street for $5.75 million, a property that hit the market in October.

The suburb was also home to a deal this year involving Jennifer Prtizker, an heir to the Pritzker family fortune and first and only openly transgender billionaire. In April, the cousin of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker sold a six-bedroom, nine-bathroom Tudor style mansion she had been operating as a bed and breakfast at 1622 Forest Place for $3.6 million to buyers who plan to use it as a residence.