Former WMAQ-Ch. 5 news anchor Zoraida Sambolin, who works for CNN in New York, sold her six-bedroom, architecturally significant house in Oak Park for $1.34 million.
Late last year, Sambolin, 46, left NBC-5, where she had worked since 2002, to co-host a new 5 to 7 a.m. broadcast on CNN.
Sambolin reaped a profit on the 5,288-square-foot house, which was designed by architect George W. Maher (1864-1926) and sits in Oak Park’s estate district. She and her former husband paid $1 million in 2004 for the house, which is known as the Erwin House and has 41/2 baths, a grand foyer with a fireplace, a three-tier staircase with art glass windows, a wraparound porch and a kitchen with a granite island.
In January, Sambolin listed the house for $1.8 million. She later reduced the price to $1.65 million.
Sambolin spent a considerable amount to renovate the home, combining three rooms to form a new kitchen, said listing agent Patricia McDonald of Baird Warner. McDonald also noted that the June 28 sale represented the highest-priced sale in Oak Park in 2012.
Mansion redo
The 9,626-square-foot, English manor-style Northbrook mansion sold by former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon for $2.85 million in 2009 has come back on the market for almost twice that amount.
McMahon, who now lives in Florida, sold the brick and limestone mansion on 2.38 acres to neighbor Rick Eisen in September 2009. Since that time, Eisen has spent more than two years renovating and updating the mansion. He listed it on Monday for $5.454 million.
The five-bedroom home has eight full baths and two half-baths, a Y-shaped staircase leading to a master suite on one side and additional bedrooms on the other, and a racquetball court that doubles as a basketball court and hockey rink.
“My initial plan for the whole thing was to move into it, and it’s still possible that that’s the way it’ll end up. We’re at the point where we’ve decided we’ll market both our current house and the (former) McMahon house, and whichever one doesn’t sell is the one we’ll keep,” Eisen said. “It’s a labor of love. It’s not what I do for a living. I’m not a rehab flipper or anything like that.”
Gold Coast sale
A 7,000-square-foot Georgian row house on the Gold Coast that was designed by architect Jarvis Hunt (1863-1941) has sold for $2.575 million.
Located at the start of the Astor Historical District, the 13-room house was built in 1910 as the principal residence of real estate investor Silas Cobb Coleman, the grandson of Chicago pioneer Silas B. Cobb. The home was designed by Hunt, who was then Coleman’s brother-in-law. The row house is one of the only single-family houses in the city designed by Hunt, whose other Chicago-designed homes include one in Kenwood that is across the street from President Barack Obama’s house.
The Gold Coast row house later was cut up into apartments, and in the late 1950s and 1960s held an art gallery. The buyer, an auto dealership owner, previously owned the house. He bought it in 2005 for $1.8 million, and sold it in 2008 for $1.85 million. After the 2008 buyer subsequently lost the row house to a bank, the previous owner repurchased it.
Features include French chevron floors, a Boffi kitchen, large-scale leaded glass windows, Agape bathroom fittings, ornate fireplaces, a Porro master closet, a two-car garage and a 12-year historical tax freeze for its first occupant.
The mansion had been listed for more than a year, first for $4.2 million and then for $3.5 million. Its final asking price was $2.999 million.