Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Vince Vaughn Takes It Down A Notch in Chicago

SELLER: Vince Vaughn
LOCATION: Chicago. IL
PRICE: $16,750,000
SIZE: 12,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 4 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Everyone who pays even a speck of guilty-pleasured attention to the celebrity real estate scene already knows by now that People's Choice and Teen Choice award-winning actor Vince Vaughn quietly (and allegedly) had his titanic, 12,000(ish) square foot Chicago, IL triplex penthouse shopped around last year with a sky-high $24,700,000 asking price and that in June (2012) the 19-room perch atop the Palmolive Building on swanky Michigan Avenue popped up on the open market with a substantially lower $18,400,000 asking price.

Well, dontcha know little darlings, just like the earlier (and alleged) $24,700,000 price tag, the $18,400,000 price tag also appears to be a little more rose-tinted than the upper end Windy City real estate market will currently bear and the price tag has been reset for less at $16,750,000.

A few quick clickety-clacks on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus indicates that amounts to almost eight million clams less than Mister Vaughn originally (and allegedly) wanted for his Lindbergh Beacon-topped behemoth and just about nine percent less than its first official, open-market asking price.

The three-floor aerie, acquired by Mister Vaughn in September 2006 for $12,000,000, devotes the entire middle floor to formal entertaining (with 28-foot long living and dining rooms and eat-in kitchen), the lower floors to intimate family quarters, and the uppermost floor to the pursuit of millionaire-style home-based amusements and diversions, according to listing information.

In addition to a gorgeously-restored, paneled office once occupied by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner back in the day when the publication's corporate offices were in the building, the top level entertainment spaces allows Mister Vaughn and his guests to watch movies in the screening room; play pool and put puzzles together (or whatever) in the games room; fix a snack (or whatever) in a seven-foot by seven-foot second kitchen; grab a beer or mix a cocktail in the separate bar; laze and lounge around in a den/family room; crash in the penthouse's fifth bedroom, step out for a smoke or toke on the good-sized terrace surrounded by city and lake views and the perfect spot, as per marketing materials, for taking in Chicago's annual Air & Water Show.

Mister Vaughn currently owns a much more modest but still pretty big by middle-class standards 4,008 square foot townhouse just north of The Loop in Chicago acquired in summer 2005 for $1,425,500 and currently used as a rental, according to top-notch property gossip Bob Goldsborough at the Chicago Tribune.

The children can make what they will of this snippet of (previously leaked) rumor and gossip but no fewer than two of Your Mama's Platinum Triangle inside operators recently snitched that Mister Vaughn might be willing to shell out eight figures for the right, movie star-style residence in Los Angeles. Regardless of whether that particular celebrity property gossip nugget is fact or fiction, Mister Vaughn has already, at least once before rode the bull at the Tinseltown real estate rodeo. From 1999 until 2005, when he unloaded it for $4,050,000, Mister Vaughn owned a gated and privately situated, 1930s Mediterranean mini-estate in in L.A.'s celeb-friendly Los Feliz area that's now owned, as per the public property records we peeped, by Emmy-nominated sci-fi television writer/producer René Echevarria (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Dark Angel, Medium, Castle, Terra Nova).

exterior photo: City of Chicago via American Architecture

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome except this pile is in Chicago and not in NYC, and Oprah already has a place there (so your one buyer Vince wont be buying). Chicago is melting down, and Vince should whack the price some more. He would do well to consult his ex Jenn Anniston on real estate matters.

FalseProfit said...

$24M in Chicago? Has he heard of La Grand Reve? High end real estate rots on the vine in that town. Who in their right mind would pay that much to live in the Midwest?

Shopgirl said...

He bought for $12mm at the peak of the real estate bubble...he'll be lucky to get out flat!

Anonymous said...

People pay that much for the Midwest because we have this gorgeous lake, flowers everywhere, and garbage-free streets. I know, it's crazy.

Carla In California said...

I can't believe Vince Vaughn has this kind of money to burn. Wow.

I must admit that Chicago has the BEST pizza pie in the U.S.! And some good looking dark-haired men in the financial district as well. ;)

Anonymous said...

@4:14: Chicago does NOT have the best "pizza pie" even saying "pizza pie" makes you sound like an idiot. New York rules on pizza.

Anonymous said...

Right! Like the only city in the world is New York. I have heard, though, that there were some mold problems in a couple of units back in May. They had to be vacated and everything ripped out. One of those affected moved to 10 E Delaware and she told us the Palmolive condo developers bought them out and paid to move them out

Anonymous said...

Children:

"Tomato pie" was invented in 1910 in the Chambersburg neighborhood of Trenton NJ, where you never run the risk of pulling the delicious cheese-tomato topping off of your slice at first bite. This is because the mozzarella cheese is placed first onto the thin crust and partially baked in, with San Marzano tomatoes placed on top. Trenton tomato pie rules!

Verandah LaPorch and
Patti O'Furniture
Trenton NJ

Lilithcat said...

If we leave Naples out of it, the best pizza is at Spacca Napoli in Chicago.

FalseProfit said...

"People pay that much for the Midwest because we have this gorgeous lake, flowers everywhere, and garbage-free streets. I know, it's crazy."

Dingus, the point is people DON'T pay that much to live in the midwest. Hence, La Grand Reve never sold (even at a no reserve auction) and V.V.'s penthouse is seeing further reductions. In other words, it's cheap there because nobody with money wants to live in the Midwest. Get it?

FalseProfit said...

Newsflash:

Chicago doesn't have the best of anything. Live with it.

Anonymous said...

I live a couple blocks away. The Palmolive building is spectacular. Absolutely gorgeous. But $1500 a square foot is well above market here. Our best buildings - and the Palmolive qualifies - brush $1200 a square foot, but not higher. So yes, I think Vince is looking at getting out even, but that's it.

Meanwhile, I do find the hate for Chicago baffling. It's got all the amenities of the worlds' best places. But it's not filled with people who are certain that they are the center of the universe. Really quite refreshing.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Mama - any chance your connections could get us some floor plan porn on VV's super-crib in the sky?

Anonymous said...

September 11, 2012 7:24 PM,

LOL, sweetie, no.. People do NOT pay that much in Chicago...and for a reason. Again, look up Le Grand Rive as the previous poster pointed out.

$5mm tops for this apartment. It's Chicago, not New York.

Anonymous said...

You people don't know anything. Le Grand Rive is not a Chicago home, that is why it didn't sell. It's not that its in Chicago its that the people here don't want it.

First.... if you want to go into that price point on the Northshore, you better fucking be on Lake Michigan. Not sandwhiching your home on to a Los Angeles sized lot surrounded by McMansions. THAT IS WHY THE HOUSE DIDN"T SELL.

Chicago has a lot, lot of money, but hides it. As the previous commenter posted, people here don't need to feel like the center of the universe, it is considered tacky in Chicago to be ostentatious and have the biggest, most expensive anything.

This is a penthouse, triplex and with outdoor space. This is a one of a kind Chicago property that doesn't "comp" out for a sales approach as a result. Vince paid $12m for the three floors unfinished and then spent MILLIONS renovating and building it out to his specifications. He will loose money on this when it sells, but it is an amazing condo.

To idiots who post aout NYC. This would be a $100m place in Manhattan. It's way, way nicer than the $88m 15CPW penthouse and that horrible City Spire place.

FalseProfit said...

Yes, we're all idiots. You and V.V. are the only people who understand the real estate market. How dumb of us to consider price per square foot or the failures of other high end properties that cannot even be sold at a loss. How dare we forget that Chicago is so fucking flush with cash that people are embarrassed by their riches. I feel so dumb!
Puh-Leeeeeeze!

FalseProfit said...

P.S.,

Saying a Richard Landry masterpiece is not good enough for Chicago is about as obtuse as it gets. What's wrong with the design? Too much quality, I suppose?

Anonymous said...

Surely the Children know that Chicago has magnificent buildings and public art, all well-documented in Art History 101 texts. Similar to San Francisco, Chicago reinvented and recreated itself after a great fire. Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House influenced residential prairie style for a generation. Louis Sullivan's Carson, Pirie, Scott store redefined retail. Daniel Burnham and Co.'s Marshall Fields ensued. Nimmons and Fellows Sears Tower, later followed by John Hancock Center and Lake Point Tower established Chicago as a center for innovative skyscrapers. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created pedestrian friendly spaces and clean interior design. And Magdalena Abakanowicz, Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso provided gorgeous public sculptures.

Chicago, along with its pizza, pales only when compared to Trenton and its superior tomato pie.

Architecturally yours,
Rabbi Hedda LaTess

Anonymous said...

A Landry Masterpice? Hahaha oxymoron if I ever heard one. Most over-rated architect ever

Anonymous said...

I live in Chicago....and agree. Who would pay that much to live here? We have the worst weather in the nation, pretty much year round. 9 months of bitter, Arctic winter coupled with 3 months of stifling, relentless humidity and heat. That alone should knock a few 0s off our prices.

Anonymous said...

I miss Marshall Field & Company.

Chicago trumps all when it comes to architecture.

See Vaughn in "Clay Pigeons". He's brilliant.

koenigstrey said...
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