Lincoln Park mansion that was once listed for $50M has a buyer

Chicago’s highest-priced house — one that once was listed for $50 million — has a buyer.

The six-bedroom limestone mansion in Lincoln Park belonging to United Automobile Insurance Company Chairman and CEO Richard Parrillo and his wife, Michaela, has been on the market since 2016, when the couple was seeking $50 million for it. Since November, it has been listed for $23.5 million, and on July 11, its listing agents revealed that for the first time since the mansion was listed in 2016, a contract has been struck for an unidentified buyer to purchase the mansion for an unspecified price.

The sale has not yet closed, but if the mansion sells for anywhere near its asking price, it would be Chicago’s highest-priced recorded sale of a single-family home, significantly eclipsing the $14.5 million that now-Gov. JB Pritzker paid in 2006 for his mansion on Astor Street. The city has had multiple condominium sales over the years for more than $14.5 million, but Pritzker’s purchase remains the highest recorded price for a single-family house within the city limits that has changed hands.

The Parrillos paid $12.5 million in 2005 to buy the site — which consists of fully eight city lots — from the Infant Welfare Society, and they soon set about building their mansion. A former listing agent once told Elite Street that the couple’s cost to build the mansion was $65 million, including land costs.

Even so, the Cook County Assessor takes a markedly different view on the mansion’s value, assessing the property at fair market value of $16.2 million in 2023.

The mansion’s size remains an open question. Listing information states that the mansion is 25,000 square feet, while the Cook County Assessor measures the mansion at 15,533 square feet. Regardless, the mansion has 11 bathrooms, an entryway with inlaid, precision-cut marble from the French Pyrenees, custom-designed bronze entry doors, Italian plaster ceiling work and reliefs, custom millwork, 18th-century light fixtures, a game room, a media room, a project room, a sitting room, two guest bedroom suites, a second-floor living room, a library, a music room, a kitchen with custom cabinetry and professional-grade appliances and a 2,000-square-foot wraparound terrace with an outdoor kitchen.

The mansion’s third level has the primary bedroom suite, which has a hand-carved English marble fireplace and a custom dressing room, while the lower level has a 5,000-bottle wine cellar and tasting suite with 14-foot ceilings.

Outside on the property are a gated motor court, an arbor, a hand-forged pavilion, decorative fountains, and a reflection pool. The mansion also has an attached, three-car garage.

Listing agent Tim Sale of Jameson Sotheby’s declined to comment on the pending contract.

The mansion’s asking price was reduced in 2020 from $50 million to $45 million and then early last year from $45 million to $30 million. In September, the asking price was reduced further to $27.9 million, and then, six weeks later, the price was dropped to $23.5 million.

The mansion had a $342,337 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.