Ellen Ruby Blog's: Historic Chicago Home Is Filled With Eye-Popping Decor

Monday, 17 August 2020

Historic Chicago Home Is Filled With Eye-Popping Decor

Even the listing agent wasn’t sure how to sell this wild three-bedroom home on Harding Avenue in Chicago.

“I wasn’t quite sure if it was going to take a year to sell or if it was going to go absolutely viral and take off. Luckily, it was the latter,” says listing agent Craig Fallico.

The highly personalized house was listed for $495,000, and within three weeks it received an offer.

“The new buyer is doing their inspection, and I’m curious to see how much they’re actually going to be able to look at. There’s just so much stuff on every single wall,” Fallico says. “I think once everything is out, it’s going to be completely different house.”

The house measures 1,869 square feet and was built in 1904 on a corner lot in a historic district. The owners are lovers of both antiques and gardening, and those passions are readily apparent.

“What’s really neat about this property is there is so much green space,” Fallico explains.

The owners wanted the grounds to look like a 17th-century Tuscan villa plopped in the heart of the Midwest.

“You have vines going up the house and the canopy tree line over the sidewalk. When you’re in the backyard, you cannot see outside the backyard,” he says. “It’s totally private back there. It’s really secluded … like an oasis outside the city.”

The home sits in the Villa District, an artsy historic area about 10 minutes from downtown.

There’s plenty going on in the lush gardens, but there’s even more happening inside the house.

“It’s very unique. You’ll never see anything like this again, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of listing,” Fallico says.

Because your eye doesn’t know where to focus in the decor-filled kitchen, it might be easy to ignore the high-end AGA appliances.

“It’s a very expensive stove,” says the agent, who estimates the appliance cost upward of $25,000. It was so heavy, the owners had to secure the flooring underneath it.

Much of the counter space is blanketed with the owners’ art and antiques, Fallico says. “When she needs to cook, she kind of just spreads things out just enough so that she can do what she needs to do.”

In addition to the living spaces, the main level has two bedrooms that share a bathroom.

The owners “said they spent over $100,000 on the bathroom. There’s a steam room and marble from Italy. It’s really fascinating,” Fallico says.

The master bedroom and bathroom are upstairs, and there’s a walk-in closet.

The owners are downsizing and moving to Florida. They’ve asked for a 90-day closing to give them time to pack up their belongings.

“Once they move, a lot of their stuff is going to be auctioned off or go to museums,” Fallico says. “It’s hard to walk through the property and not look at all of the very cool stuff that she has there.”

However, the garden will remain as is, and it will take a serious commitment from a new owner.

“That’s like [the owner’s] stage, his vision, and he doesn’t want to remove it. He wants to leave it the way it is and let the new owners either keep it or do what they want with it,” Fallico explains. The backyard also has a heated pool.

“The perfect buyer for this is somebody who likes to garden, who likes the quirkiness of it,” he says. “Whoever buys this is really going to have to probably keep it pretty close to what it is.”

Most of the folks who’ve come to see the property have said they don’t want to touch a thing, Fallico says. “It’s very interesting to kind of get that kind of feedback, because I thought for sure it would be the complete opposite.”