Two big-ticket homes changed hands in off-market sales last month in Lincoln Park, where teardowns for new construction remain the driver in; one of Chicago’s hottest luxury neighborhoods.
They sold for a combined $11.4 million, with the larger of the pair — the second new home built on the recently redeveloped land — coming in at $6.8 million to make it one of Chicago’s priciest transactions so far this year, and bigger than any single-family home sale made on the open market so far this year.
Only three homes have sold for more than $7 million this year, and they were all condos or co-op units in downtown high-rises, with the priciest being the $9.3 million sale of a 9,000-square-foot unit within the Gold Coast building at 65 East Goethe Street.
In the biggest of the Lincoln Park deals, the newly built single-family home at 1916 North Howe Street was sold for $6.8 million last month by luxury developer Environs Development, according to property records.
“Environs always has a good pipeline of buyers,” said Compass agent Jeff Lowe, the listing agent for the property’s previous owners who sold it to Environs before it was redeveloped. “That’s why I called them when I had the land because I knew they were looking for some land in Lincoln Park.”
Environs bought the property along with the neighboring condo building at 1920 North Howe as a package back in 2022 and tore down both structures to build two new single-family homes. The two buildings were sold as a development site for $4.85 million total.
Environs built a nine-bed, eight-bath home spanning 7,800 square feet on the lot at 1920 North Howe, which was listed publicly and sold for $5.3 million in the fall of last year. The listing agent was Kevin Wood of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate and the home was purchased by Bryan Landman and Hayley Zullow.
The buyers of the Lincoln Park homes couldn’t be determined from public records. Environs Development and Wood, who Lowe said often works with the development firm, were not available for comment when contacted by The Real Deal.
In a neighborhood that has caught the attention of redevelopers and luxury homebuyers, the land was worth more than the “older frame house” and condo building that formerly sat on top of it, Lowe said.
The properties’ previous owners were Philippe Blanchard and Elke Rehbock, two Chicago attorneys, according to property records. Lowe said his clients had rented out the single-family home before the lots were purchased by Environs.
The second Lincoln Park property to sell in an off-market deal over the last month was a single-family home at 1907 North Burling Street that went for $4.55 million, according to property records. It’s a six-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom, 8,200-square-foot home built in 2005, and last sold for $4.3 million in 2010, according to MLS data collated by Realtor.com.
Lincoln Park has consistently ranked among Chicago’s wealthiest and most expensive neighborhoods, coming in at No. 9 in a 2023 ranking by the Chicago Tribune. As of last year, the outlet found that the average single-family home in Lincoln Park was valued at $813,000. Also last year, a Lincoln Park mansion at 1956 North Orchard Street came in at No. 4 on The Real Deal’s list of priciest home sales, selling for $10.6 million.
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