WTTW-Channel 11 contributing anchor Phil Ponce and his wife, Ann, on Thursday sold their four-bedroom, 3,600-square-foot house on an extra-wide lot in the North Side Lincoln Square neighborhood for $1.52 million.
Ann Ponce is a painter, while Phil Ponce was a correspondent and host of WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” program from 1992 until 2021. He now has the title of Alexandra and John Nichols Contributing Anchor at WTTW, and he still occasionally fills in when needed on “Chicago Tonight.”
The sale of the Lincoln Square home, which includes a coach house, is part of a lifestyle change for the Ponces, who recently decided to downsize to a three-bedroom, ranch-style house in Northbrook that they bought in mid-June that is steeped in Chicago-area artistic history.
The Lincoln Square property also is historic, and the Ponces transformed it significantly after they paid $600,000 for it in 2009. The couple restored both the house and the alleyside coach house, updating the buildings’ plumbing, electrical, siding, mechanicals and roofs, and preserving or sourcing historic wood floors, fireplace tile, trim, moldings and the staircase. They also rehabilitated and converted the coach house, which at one time was a horse barn for a dairy, into a painting studio for Ann Ponce, and a photo studio for the couple’s daughter and daughter-in-law, both of whom are photographers.
With the couple’s decision to downsize and move to one-level living in Northbrook, the Ponces placed the Lincoln Square house on the market on May 30 for $1.6 million and found a buyer just days later.
“The coach house part of it was something that was super-special,” listing agent Jennefer Folsom of @properties, who co-listed the house with Ashley Bell, told Elite Street. “You don’t see many of those in Chicago anymore, and the way they renovated the whole property was super-extraordinary. It had a lot of these visual aspects that had a lot of history and richness to it, but with modern finesse that a lot of buyers are looking for. To have the coach house on a double lot plus a side yard, you don’t see a lot of those. Realtors say all the time that a property is a sanctuary in the city, but this actually really was.”
Previously, Phil Ponce had told Elite Street that it was “bittersweet” to leave the city and the home’s neighbors. He said that in addition to his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law’s uses of the coach house for their artistic activities, he spent a huge amount of time gardening on the property, including the public right-of-way.
Built in 1891 and also part of a one-time dairy complex, the house has 2-1/2 bathrooms, a second-floor laundry room, a renovated kitchen, a double parlor, a finished basement and a fully finished attic. The kitchen was remodeled by HGTV’s “Kitchen Crashers” program and has a large island, a Fisher & Paykel range, a warming oven and a warming oven.
Outside on the property are a two-car garage with a built-out roof deck, a side lot with a playhouse and the lofted coach house, which has a kitchenette, a full bathroom, and its own mechanicals.
Folsom noted that the Ponces received multiple offers for the home.
“I think the reason we did get so much traffic and so much interest is that it was something that really respected the era with which it was built, and they took so much time to source molding and trim and brought it to the home,” she said. “It was also filled with Ann’s art as well. Every photo, every painting, that’s Ann Ponce. So it was an ode to the creativity of the whole family really. And with the photography studio in the coach house and Ann using that as well for painting classes, it felt like a place where really good creative things happen. Ann and Phil are thrilled with the offer they chose. It is a young family and a young family really has not lived in that home, so they were really thrilled to see that new energy and new life in this next chapter of the house.”
What sealed the deal for the Ponces, Folsom said, was that the buyers will allow the photography business to continue to operate in the coach house.
“The family that ended up buying the house made a really generous offer to (the Ponces’ daughter-in-law) Maggie and her business to be able to continue to operate out of this very special, unique place,” Folsom said. “Being able to stay there until and if they find a new alternate space was a huge part of the deal that we did end up putting together.”
Public records do not yet identify the buyers.
The Lincoln Square property had a $30,081 property tax bill in the 2021 tax year.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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