How does this Lake Forest five-bedroom by Old World revivalist David Adler depart from the Chicago-area heavyweight's other picture-perfect commissions? For starters, it wasn't originally a main house, but rather, a complex of garages and servants quarters with an attached greenhouse. Other completely normal pieces of suburban Chicago fare on hand include a medieval-looking five-story observation tower that Chicago Magazine's Ian Spula describes as "fairly terrifying."
Chicago banker Albert Hamill had the addition built in 1928, onto a home that Adler assisted Howard Van Doren Shaw in designing. ("Hamill was a big fan of Italy," listing agent Ned Skae tells Chicago. "And in Italy the guy with the tallest tower had the most money.") The current owners let their son live in the observatory level after acquiring the 6,728-square-foot Italianate complex in 1985. The coolest bedroom in the entire universe has since been converted into a guest room.
According to Chicago, the current owners have made "countless improvements and alterations," including the addition of a library, another bedroom, and a second-floor master suite. On the other hand, features like the wraparound mural in the tower's "Byzantine Room" have been left to "gradual degradation" rather than the application of a "finicky restoration that would inevitably ring false." Listed for $2.8M back in 2010, the home was put back on the market earlier this month for a reduced $2.495M.
· David Adler's Italianate Tower is For Sale in Lake Forest [Chicago Mag]
· After One Year on the Market, Adler's 5-Story Tower Drops $500K [Curbed Chicago]
· All David Adler coverage [Curbed National]
· All Lake Forest coverage [Curbed National]