Sept. 19--Is a portion of a rooftop patio in Streeterville worth $1 million-plus?
That was the question raised by the $9.3 million listing Friday of a five-bedroom, 7,662-square-foot, full-floor condo in the vintage Mayfair tower at 189 E. Lake Shore Drive. That same unit sold Sept. 8 for $10.375 million -- but that sale included a rooftop patio that is no longer included in the latest listing.
The reason for the quick flip is that the buyer only wanted the 18th-floor unit to take possession of its portion of the building's rooftop patio deck, said listing agent Katherine Malkin of Baird Warner. Malkin declined to identify the buyer but said the buyer "bought it to acquire the patio ... they already owned the other patio at the top of the building" and wanted to combine the two.
"Now that they have the (portion of the patio that they didn't previously own), they put the apartment back on the market," Malkin said.
Elite Street set about doing some detective work. Although public records did not immediately identify the condo's buyer, the owner of the lone unit above it is Art Institute of Chicago trustee Barbara Bluhm-Kaul.
Barbara Bluhm-Kaul's husband, Don Kaul, confirmed they had made the deal: "You got it exactly right. It's a package and it's the part of the package that you want."
Katherine Malkin noted that even without its portion of the rooftop patio that was purchased, the 18th-floor unit has two other patios attached to it at its level. Other features in the unit include 51/2 baths and three fireplaces. The unit was owned at one time by the building's developer, Bruce Abrams, who leaped to his death from the building in 1999. Abrams' widow sold the unit for $8 million in 2006 to Robert and Robin Berman, who were the sellers on Sept. 8.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
