Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Rosie O'Donnell Flips Out in Chi-Town

SELLER: Rosie O'Donnell
LOCATION: Chicago, IL
PRICE: $2,500,000
SIZE: 6,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Lowerd have mercy, children, rich and/or famous folks sometimes do the darnedest things with their real estate portfolios. Last September comedienne/activist/agitator/chat show hostess Rosie O'Donnell paid two-and-a-quarter million clams for a 12-room townhouse-type mansion in Chicago, IL where she tapes her daytime talk show five days a week in the very same studio vacated by her current employer Oprah Winfrey.

Well, dontcha know the recently engaged lesbian lady caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and yesterday flipped the approximately 6,000 square foot red brick and limestone residence in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood back on the market with an asking price of $2,500,000. Her spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune yesterday Miz O'Donnell snatched up the property on impulse and that a "corporate-supplied apartment had proved sufficient" for her residential needs in The Windy City.

Your Mama notes the photographs included with current listing information show the fairly traditional day-core exactly as listing photos did at the time Miz O'Donnell purchased the property last fall. We're not sure if this is because Miz Thing bought every stick of furniture and hasn't changed a God damn thing or if the listing agent is simply making use of old listing images that don't reflect the current decorative state of things.

Whatever the case, the 3-story house still measures about 6,000 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half bathrooms. Other features, according to listing information, include a puny formal sitting room with adjoining formal dining room, over-sized butler's pantry, and an open plan kitchen/dining/family room with loads of custom woodwork and a bank of French doors that connect to an urban-sized backyard finished with high-quality faux-grass.

Listing information indicates the bulky and hulky house also has home theater and sports bar in the basement, a three car temperature-controlled garage accessible from an alley way at the rear of the property, and a 2,000 square foot roof deck with more fake grass under foot, an outdoor fireplace, trellis structure light and shade modulation, and lattice panels put up—we imagine—for privacy purposes.

Besides the little-loved townhouse in Chicago, Miz O'Donnell's current property portfolio includes a sprawling riverfront compound in Nyack, NY that includes a 7,092 square foot Dutch Colonial main house, four additional residences, waterside swimming pool and dock.  Since March 1999 Miz O'Donnell has owned a 13,887 square foot mansion with 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms on the private, exclusive and guard-gated Star Island enclave in Miami Beach, FL, and in October 2008 she dropped $2,005,000 for a 1,391 square foot pied a terre at the Platinum building in the heart of the theater district just a block from New York City's Times Square.

listing photos: Koenig & Strey Real Estate

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm visiting Chicago now from CA. Not sure if you've posted on the Richard Perillo Mansion just built in the Lincoln district of Chicago with a price tag of $40,000.000. When I happened upon this monster I thought it was condos.

Anonymous said...

The outside looks like a re-purposed school house but, there's plenty of astroturf for Tim Tebow to kneel on and feel right at home should he drop by for dinner.

Anonymous said...

I thought it of interest that Jane Fonda gave as one of her reasons for dumping Ted Turner was his habit of moving around through his eight houses every year. She said: I told him I wanted a winter house and a summer house, period. So I left.

Anonymous said...

I thought I read at the time that she either bought all the furniture or it was part of the deal.

Anonymous said...

Point of clarification to Anon #1: The Perillo house is in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. And, yes, it looks like a freaking embassy.

Anonymous said...

It's a popular misconception that Star Island is private. There is in fact a gate house on the bridge leading to the island from the Macarthur Causeway that gives that illusion, but in fact it's public and anyone can drive out and take a look around.

Mama, it would be nice if you would make some sense in writing as to why those who comment are being asked to decipher the bizarre lettering of not one but two words. I'm a smart and reasonable man, able to understand why I'm asked to do certain things that are difficult or unpleasant, but, this one, I'm not getting.

Amanda B. Rekendwith said...

@ Anonymous 7:35
Think of it as a modern day blood test. Helps keep the riff-raff out. lol

And mama, Finfougu!
I kid not.
;-)

Viva! said...

According to the Chicago Tribune the house sold after one day on the market for the asking price. Rosie made $250,000 off the place, with real estate fees and commissions she comes out just ahead of even.

Terrific for her!