Interior designer Kate Marker and her husband, Kenneth, on Sept. 14 placed their six-bedroom Arts and Crafts-style mansion in Barrington Hills on the market for $4.99 million.
A designer since 2000, Marker runs Barrington-based Kate Marker Interiors, and she oversees a variety of interior design projects. She also frequently comments to the news media on interior design topics.
In Barrington Hills, Marker and her husband paid $860,000 in early 2020 for the home. She then set out to renovate the mansion, which was built in 1926 and now has five full bathrooms, three half bathrooms, original plaster and wood moldings, reclaimed wood and stone flooring, Dutch doors and a kitchen with an ILVE Italian range, dual Sub-Zero refrigerators, a built-in coffee station, marble and soapstone countertops, a walk-in pantry and herringbone wood floors.
Other features in the 9,210-square-foot house include a breakfast room, a rear staircase, a family room with a beamed ceiling and a wood-burning river rock fireplace, a mud room with built-in lockers and heated brick floors, a sunroom and a primary bedroom suite with custom-built walk-in closets, exposed brick walls and an exposed rafter beam ceiling.
Outside on the property are a heated saltwater pool, a hot tub with a pergola, a herringbone fire rock patio, a fire pit area, a 1,000-square-foot coach house, views overlooking Flint Creek and garage parking space for seven cars. The mansion sits on 10 acres.
Mimi Noyes of @properties, who is co-listing the house with Coldwell Banker’s Dawn McKenna, told Elite Street that the house was built by Charles Buckley of Highland Park, who wanted to create a gentleman’s farm.
“He commissioned artisans from Europe to build the house, which means it is beyond the standards of today. The walls are 17 inches thick,” she said. “He really had a passion for the construction and the design and the architecture.”
Marker, Noyes said, “opened up the floor plan with all of today’s finishes and a floor plan that works for a family and just today’s living.”
“Not all older homes lend themselves to be able to do that, but she did it (here) and she did it from head to toe,” Noyes said. “The details are so cohesive throughout the house and are just spot-on for what people want today, and that is light and bright and flowing but still some character with the built-ins and unique cabinetry and surfaces and stones and marble and plasters and views.”
Outside, Noyes said, Marker overhauled the landscaping, and the driveway and added a pool and patio, along with giving the mansion an attached garage.
McKenna called Marker’s mansion “the most magical home I’ve ever listed.”
“It’s 10 acres with a replica of the Maggie Daley ‘ribbon’ river in your backyard. It freezes in the winter for ice skating. You can have horses, a vegetable garden, a coach house and a pool — it has everything in one place,” she said. “It’s a country estate within running distance to town, and it’s rare that you get all of this and it can be turnkey from one of the most acclaimed designers in the country. That in itself is very coveted. In today’s real estate world, everyone wants a turnkey product with amenities. We learned that loud and clear from the pandemic.”
The estate had a $20,829 property tax bill in the 2021 tax year.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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