New on the Market - Beverly, Chicago

List price: $1.4 million

The Property: Designed in the late 1920s by Scipione Del Campo for John Tiberi (the owner of a cement company), this 12-room brick house on the city’s Far Southwest Side resembles Tiberi’s boyhood home in Italy. While its blond good looks would stand out in any neighborhood, the house literally rises above its neighbors because its basement was built at ground level and then the yard was backfilled up to the house’s first floor.

The interior craftwork elegantly complements the house’s exterior. Most of the doorways are arched, a plaster mantel in the main-floor study is as ornate as anything in a Renaissance chapel, and the passage from the master bedroom to the sitting area is framed by two twisted columns that suggest a Venetian palazzo. The house has four other bedrooms, a sauna and a wine cellar in the basement, and a fountain in the back yard.

The extensive murals and other interior decorations—all meticulously maintained—have not stopped the current owners from treating the house as a home. “We’ve never lived as if this were a museum,” says Mari-Ellyn Morreale, whose family has lived in the house for 21 years after buying the place from Tiberi’s estate. (Her husband, Phillip Morreale, is a doctor at Little Company of Mary Hospital). To make her point, she shows where her three children threw darts, drew on walls, and stowed their sports equipment as they were growing up.

Price Points: The $1.4-million asking price far exceeds Beverly’s record sale of $850,000 (according to records of the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois). Its kitchen and breakfast room (a later addition) are dated and surprisingly modest—but because they share none of the house’s interior detailing, adding a new kitchen would not harm the overall design.

Listing agent: Bernadette Molloy, Molloy & Associates, 708-233-2760

Comments

[Dennis Rodkin]

Hi Chuck. The Mutliple Listing Service records show nothing over $850k in Beverly, but there could have been private sales that went higher. (A private sale could be by a developer who doesn't put it in the listing service, or a sale between family members, for instance.) I don't know of any in Beverly that went higher--but if you do, I'd love to know about them! Certainly some of the great Longwood Drive houses are worth more than $1 million, but have any sold recently? Dennis

[woodlawnchuck]

This thing has been on the market for about a year. But, that's a nice catch there on the record sale in Beverly of $850K. Are you sure about that? I've had the same argument with people, and this was a good three or four years ago. They contended that there had been $1Milliion sales on several occassions.