By Dana Dubriwny

For many, the $1 million-plus price tag on a single-family home in Chicago makes ownership an unachievable goal. But for buyers who know where to look, a wrought-iron fence, backyard and attached garage are all within reach.

Cornelia Court, a new townhouse development at 3001 W Cornelia Ave in Avondale, offers all the perks of a single-family home with all the amenities of condo living. When completed next year, the $28-million development will feature 13 buildings housing 63 three- and four-story townhouses. Every single unit will have a deck, fenced-in private yard, and a two- or 2.5-car garage.

The townhouses at Cornelia Court on Chicago’s Northwest Side are offered in four distinct floor plans. The smallest unit, called the Cornelia, is a 2,242-square-foot, two-bedroom, 2.5 bath townhouse with a two-car attached garage, with prices beginning in the $490s. The Addison, which starts around $500,000, is a 2,242-square-foot three-bedroom, three-bath townhouse and includes a two-car attached garage. The Bentley, priced in the $630s, is a four-bedroom, 3.5-bath townhouse with 2,904 square feet and a 2.5-car attached garage. And in February, developers introduced the Dorchester, a three-bedroom, 3.5-bath unit complete with a two-car garage from the $500s.

Gale Goldstick, sales manager at Cornelia Court for Coldwell Banker Residential, says the unique craftsmanship and personalized detail in each unit is a testament to the quality of the development. Buyers are able to customize their units because co-developer Steven V. Frytz of Anchor General Contractors Inc. is also a hands-on builder and contractor.

"For example, a buyer from Florida is putting some unique architectural details in the home’s interior, and he’s making some light-orientated changes as well as some structural alterations,” says Goldstick. “We have added some extra details within the unit, and that simply has not been done before.”

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Mention Chicago real estate and some immediately conjure images of Lake Shore Drive and the Magnificent Mile, sleek glass towers and architectural wonders. But those who know the city well think of neighborhoods, and when one is revitalized, the process elicits at least as much pride for Chicagoans as any Gehry bandshell or Miesian masterpiece.

Parkside of Old Town is a case in point. The project, from developers Kimball Hill Urban Centers, Holsten Real Estate Development Corp. and the Cabrini-Green LAC Community Development Corp., will ultimately bring 790 new homes to eight square blocks in the Old Town area, bounded by Larrabee, Division and Oak streets and Seward Park.

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New homes, residents spur change in staid affordable neighborhoods 

Story by Alison Soltau  |  Photography by Barry Peterson

Amy Mogelberg grew up in a Bridgeport two-flat off Archer Avenue surrounded by working-class Irish, Italian and Eastern European neighbors. Her dad, who is Polish, drank at a tavern called the Bridgeport Inn, says Mogelberg, who at 32, now works as a cop in the neighborhood. Dressed as a civilian today – white T-shirt and faded jeans, hair pulled into a tight brown ponytail – she recalls catching the bus down Archer with her grandmother to buy pierogis and sauerkraut at a Polish deli in Brighton Park. (more…)

KB Home offers luxury houses minus maintenance at Creekside

by Dan Schuyler

What do today's new-home buyers want in floor plans, finishes, landscaping and architecture? Before KB Home began building houses in suburban Chicago, the company surveyed scores of recent buyers to answer this question. (more…)

CBI Custom Homes sweats the details for $3.9 million Tudor in Glencoe

by Dan Schuyler

When you cast an eye over design-build firm CBI Custom Homes' stunning period-specific houses, you're reminded of the quotation from 19th century Chicago architect Daniel Burnham displayed on the company's Web site, CBICustomHomes.com: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." (more…)

Design-build offers perfect homes for picky buyers with time, money

by Joel Hoglund

To build or not to build, that was the question facing 36-year-old Devin Mathews and his wife Gina as they moved their young family back to Chicago last year.

Temporarily settled in a Gold Coast condo, Devin and Gina cruised the single-family home market with three options in mind. They could buy a new spec house, rehab an existing house, or design and build their own custom home. (more…)

Big bucks help in hunt for new house or townhome, but bargains still exist

As a devoted White Sox fan, Dawn Melchiorre is excited that her family is selling its Edgewater home and moving to a new house in Bridgeport Village, a development situated on the home turf of her beloved team.

But the location of Bridgeport Village, on the banks of the Chicago River at 33rd Street and Racine Avenue, isn't the only thing that makes it a winner in Melchiorre's eyes.
Her new masonry five-bedroom house cost $875,000 at the Near South project – reasonable, she says, when you consider Chicago's prohibitively expensive single-family home market. (more…)

Can a quaint village retain its charm despite growth and inevitable teardowns?

These days, the old water tower in Northbrook is a clean slate, conspicuously devoid of the famous message it carried 20 years ago: "SAVE FERRIS."

Can anyone tell me if the boy has been saved?

Anyone…anyone…?

The truth is, he never really needed saving; he was faking it all along.

Legendary filmmaker John Hughes wrote the faux-sick Ferris Bueller into existence and took us along on his topsy-turvy journey through his hometown of "Shermer, Illinois" and its neighboring metropolis, Chicago, on one glorious day of high school hooky in 1986. Hughes faked it too. He turned his lens on the very real Northbrook and called it "Shermer," a recurring setting for his movies. (more…)

Ivy Hall caps new University Village, adding houses to mix

During the past five years the historic Maxwell Street neighborhood has gone from a strip of dilapidated storefronts and vacant lots to University Village, a bustling mixed-use community located on 68 acres adjacent to the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, on the Near West Side.

Built by the South Campus Development Team (SCDT), a joint venture of Mesirow Stein Real Estate Inc., Harlem Irving Cos. and New Frontier Cos., University Village is entering its third and final phase of development with Ivy Hall, a collection of more than 160 walkup condominiums, more than 30 townhomes, and 36 single-family homes. (more…)

West Rogers Park remains port of entry, but rising prices make docking more difficult

Leah Averick couldn't imagine living anywhere but her home of 33 years on Fargo Street, partly because West Rogers Park provides the perfect environment for following Orthodox Jewish teachings. The nearby Jewel supermarket has a kosher bakery and butcher. The neighborhood has several Jewish bookstores, and a Kollel study center for Jewish men is nearby.

Averick, who has five children and 20 grandchildren, is always busy celebrating a "happy occasion" with other members of her West Rogers Park community. Over the last few weeks she attended the 20^th anniversary of a friend's son's bar mitzvah, then stopped in at an ufruf, a ceremony held for a bride groom on the Sabbath before his wedding. "And there's always a bris happening," Averick says, referring to the ritual circumcision of newborn Jewish boys. (more…)