Financier and former Fruit of the Loom President and CEO William F. Farley and his wife, Shelley, have listed their seven-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot, full-floor apartment on the 14th floor of an East DuSable Lake Shore Drive cooperative building for $15.9 million.
The co-op’s asking price eclipses all other homes’ asking prices inside the city of Chicago with the exception of a 25,000-square-foot Lincoln Park mansion with a nearly $30 million price tag. In the suburbs, the only higher-priced home is a lakefront mansion on 31.85 acres with a $22.9 million asking price.
A self-made Rhode Island native who at one time was a co-owner of the Chicago White Sox, Farley acquired Chicago conglomerate Northwest Industries, which owned underwear maker Fruit of the Loom, in 1985 and took the firm public two years later. He was at the helm of Fruit of the Loom until 1999, when it underwent a reorganization that concluded with its sale to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company. Today, Farley runs Liam Ventures, a private-equity firm.
On East DuSable Lake Shore Drive, Farley bought one, 6,000-square-foot half-floor unit in 1986. He purchased the other unit about six years later, and he then hired noted Chicago architect Laurence Booth to combine them into a modernist-style, 12,000-square-foot spread with 360-degree views.
“Larry is just a wonderful architect, and what I said to Larry was, ‘I want this apartment to be all about light and space,’” Farley told Elite Street. “The ceilings are 11-feet high, there are these huge windows, and, of course, there are no obstructions, and these views are incredible, not just for Chicago but for any major city in America to have this location, which is East Lake Shore Drive.”
The 18-story building was constructed in the mid-1920s and was designed by noted architect Benjamin Marshall, who himself lived in a sixth-floor apartment during the building’s first decade or so. The building boasts a tremendous amount of star power in terms of its resident-owners, and Farley was close friends with legendary Tribune advice columnist Ann Landers — whose real name was Eppie Lederer and lived in an apartment one level above Farley’s until her death in 2002.
Over the years, Farley also has used his apartment to host a variety of political fundraisers. Farley said he has hosted “probably three” U.S. presidents in the apartment over the years, along with numerous U.S. senators, governors and mayors.
“It’s been great fun and it’s been a great journey,” he said. “We’ve had the wonderful opportunity over the years to host some really amazing individuals.”
In addition to the size of the space, the views and the natural light, Farley touted the apartment’s flow and the fact that the redesign by Booth allowed for two large art galleries.
“We are fortunate enough to have a pretty neat art collection, and we have these two really large art galleries on either side of the units, we’ve got the 11-foot ceilings, and we’ve got ample space. It’s 45 feet long,” he said. “We’ve also got a gym in the apartment, and I’ve been known to have a glass of wine, and we’ve got a really beautiful temperature-controlled wine room. So it’s a combination of those things that I think makes it just so special and so unique and so great.”
Other features in the couple’s co-op include seven full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, six wood-burning fireplaces, 120-foot-long views, a custom-paneled library, an office and a family/media room. The purchase comes with two guest apartments found on lower levels of the building, as well as four garage spaces, which is unusual for a home in that area of the Gold Coast.
Although the Farleys have their co-op unit for sale, William Farley said he wanted to make clear that he has no intention of leaving Chicago. He and his wife divide their time between Chicago and a place in Maine, and they plan to continue that.
“You do get to a stage in life where it’s a 12,000-square-foot space and it’s just two people, and you want to reduce the footprint,” he said. “It’s not negative about anything in the city. It’s a wonderful building, and we love the building and we love the neighborhood. We had mixed feelings (about listing it) and we debated it for several years.”
Listing agent Jeffrey Lowe of Compass called the Farleys’ apartment “one of the most remarkable homes I’ve ever been in.”
“I’ve sold a number of co-ops recently, and they all have a lot of heavy millwork and are kind of dark, but this one is open and bright. It’s a Larry Booth design so it’s a very fresh, modern, bright version of a co-op, which you don’t see oftentimes,” Lowe said. “And it’s more than 12,000 square feet, but it’s very inviting. There’s no wasted space. My sellers have a large family. With seven bedrooms and a library, their home is like a big house in the sky.”
William Farley has owned other prominent real estate over the years. In Newport, Rhode Island, he paid $6.67 million in 1997 to buy Hammersmith Farm, the former Auchincloss family estate that had been the site of Jackie and John F. Kennedy’s 1,200-person wedding reception in 1953. Farley bought the 54-acre estate to prevent plans to rezone the property to allow the construction of condominiums. He sold the estate in 1999 for $8.03 million to its current owner.
In Chicago, Farley once owned — but never lived in — a 9,000-square-foot, restored Gold Coast mansion that was designed by celebrated architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. He bought that mansion, at the corner of Burton Place and Astor Street, in 1987 and sold it the following year to former Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Galvin and his wife, Elizabeth.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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