LAKE FOREST, IL — A longtime executive at defense contractor General Dynamics sold his custom-built Lake Forest mansion last week for about 25 percent below its original asking price.
Built in 2009, the seven-bedroom estate is located on a 1.9-acre parcel overlooking Middlefork Savannah Nature Preserve and includes more than 13,000 total square feet of finished space, according to its listing.
The property includes an outdoor swimming pool overlooking a pond to the west of the home, as well as two garages with room for two cars each.
The master bedroom includes a sitting room and balcony offering “mesmerizing views and sunsets that will take your breath away,” according to the home’s listing. According to county records, the property had not been sold since it was purchased for $647,000 in 1998, which is the equivalent of about $1.25 million in today’s dollars. The sellers were Nicholas Chabraja and his wife, Eleanor.
Nicholas Chabraja was chairman and chief executive officer of General Dynamics from 1997 to 2009 and a member of the board through 2018. Prior to joining the Virginia-based aerospace and weapons manufacturer in 1993, Chabraja spent 22 years as a litigation partner with the law firm Jenner & Block, which included an appointment as special trial counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986 during the U.S. Senate’s first impeachment trial in a half-century.
Eleanor Chabraja is a retired teacher and a past member of the boards of the Naples Botanical Garden and the Bexley Seabury Federation.
In 2015, the Chabrajas donated $5.6 million to Northwestern University. Six years earlier, General Dynamics donated $3 million to the university to establish the Nicholas D. Chabraja Professorship , which supports both the university’s business school and law school. They first listed the property for sale in June 2020 with an asking price of $6.5 million. The price was reduced to below $6 million in October 2021, and an offer was accepted last month. The $4.8 million sale closed Thursday.
According to Lake County records, the home’s estimated market value is less than $2.9 million. Its annual property tax bill was about $55,000 last year.
The property is the 11th to sell for more than $4 million in Lake Forest since the pandemic. Its buyers have yet to been publicly identified.
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