A five-bedroom mansion on Lake Michigan in Lake Bluff that once was listed for $12.5 million but sold in December for just $1.61 million came on the market on Aug. 17 for $4.5 million. A five-bedroom, 14,274-square-foot mansion on Lake Michigan in Lake Bluff that once was listed for $12.5 million but sold in December 2020 for just $1.61 million sold again this week for $4.02 million.
Sellers Andrew Goldberg, who is the global head of enterprise technology at biopharmaceutical firm AbbVie, and his wife, Diana, flipped the mansion after just over a year of ownership for a $2.4 million-plus gain. Listing agent Dominick Clarizio told Elite Street in a brief interview that “a lot of renovation work has been done” by the sellers, but that he had “been advised” not to go into specifics.
Built in 1941, the mansion previously was owned by banker George Michael, who paid $3 million for it in 2004. He famously persuaded state revenue officials to agree with his claim in 2008 that the mansion was a church serving 10 parishioners, thus allowing him to avoid paying $80,000 in annual property taxes. However, that ruling subsequently was reversed by an administrative law judge for the Illinois Department of Revenue, leaving Michael on the hook for the mansion’s full property tax bill. Then, in 2009, Michael listed the mansion for $12.5 million.
Michael found no takers at that price. Over the next decade, Michael had the mansion on and off the market, including for $5.5 million and then $5 million in the mid-2010s, and then for just below $3.95 million from 2017 until 2019. He also offered the mansion for rent for $10,000 a month for a time.
After a foreclosure action, a bank assumed ownership of the house, and cut the mansion’s asking price to $3.249 million at the start of 2020 and then to just under $3 million in March 2020. The bank then got aggressive, reducing it to $2.95 million in May 2020, $2.5 million in June 2020 and finally $2.25 million in August 2020.
In an interview several months ago, Andrew Goldberg told Elite Street that he and his family had moved into the mansion. He noted the appeal of the mansion’s sandy beach.
The mansion has 9-1/2 bathrooms, four fireplaces, a large butler’s pantry with custom cabinetry, a kitchen with granite countertops, a heated indoor swimming pool and spa, a large family room with a wet bar, a two-story sport court, a home office, rooftop balconies, hardwood floors, and a walkout lower level with a second kitchen, a wine cellar, a recreation room with media space and a game room. Outside on the property are a one-story guesthouse and more than 260 feet of private beach.
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