Last Sunday developer Michael Hughes showed off two 60s T-Birds and two 70s Corvettes from his personal collection at a new home he's recently completed at 339 Linden St in Winnetka. Fields Northfield brought along a Jeep that will do 0-60 in 4.2 seconds.

The price of the 5-bedroom, 6 full and 2 half-bath home has been reduced from $4M to $3,348,000. In the video Hughes tells me that he might throw in a Corvette – or two – for a buyer who makes a full-price offer.

Coldwell Banker's Linda Martin staged the open house for the home, drewing a crowd of car aficionados and, possibly, a prospective home buyer or two. Guests at the event were asked to bring donations for the New Trier Township Pantry. Yes, folks, there are some low-income residents in Winnetka

I also visited the home several months ago, and you can see a four-part walk-through at our Winnetka playlist.

Rate and review 339 Linden at NewHomeNotebook.

First off, my hat goes off to the folks at @properties' Mike Vesole Group. The 1700 block of North Rockwell Street is smack-dab in the middle of what Realtors call "West Bucktown," but I haven't seen or heard that term mentioned once in reference to this new single-family home. They aren't going out of their way to scream "Logan Square," of course, but I'll take omission over flat-out fabrication any day.

I'm used to hearing about big open-house parties, but usually for condo projects, where there are multiple units available. In this case, Vesole is throwing a shindig tomorrow evening - "Rock on Rockwell" - for a single home at 1752 N Rockwell St. Yes, we are officially to the point where brokers are booking bands and caterers just to make one sale. (I don't know a thing about Catatonic, but can you think of a more unfortunate - or appropriate - name for a band playing an open house in today's market?)

To be fair, 1752 North Rockwell seems to stand out from most of the single-families and rentals on its block. As you can see from the picture above, it bears more resemblance to a Studio Dwell home than to its red-brick neighbors, which admittedly might make it more like a Bucktown residence. According to sales agent Brooke Epley, the 4,200 square-foot, four-bedroom / 3.5-bath home was designed by Buono Development, whose portfolio consists primarily of conversions in Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Irving Park and Heart of Chicago.

The home features Unico cabinets, DuPont Corian countertops, and Smeg and SubZero appliances in the kitchen, a dual glass shower and air-jet tub in the master bath, a glassed-in gym or office space, two decks, and a two-car garage, Epley says. It is priced at $1.29 million.

Below are four more pictures of 1752 North Rockwell's interiors and roof deck.

I heard back from Bob Kohler of the Matt Garrison Group yesterday afternoon, after I had written about RDM Development's price reductions at Marquette Village. He filled in a few gaps in my report and answered some of the questions I had about the project.

RDM has built 10 single-family homes near the intersection of 74th and Rockwell streets in Marquette Park, Kohler says. One of those has sold, and another two went under contract after the developer lowered prices. Two homes do not have finished interiors and are still ripe for some customization and upgrades.

Although Marquette Village technically is not a multi-phased project like the other mega-developments we see on the South Side, RDM wants to expand the project by no more than 10 units at a time until the market picks up, Kohler says. If the adjusted prices attract buyers, a new round of 10 could break ground and be ready for delivery in six to eight months.

Marquette Village should have 139 three-bedroom / 2.5-bath homes when complete.

- Rate and review Marquette Village at NewHomeNotebook.com.

The snow in our old pictures of Mayfair Crossing is far too unseasonal, so before he went on vacation at the beginning of this month, Mark drove out to Old Irving Park and snapped some sunnier shots of CA Development's new single-family homes.

CA is building 26 three- and four-bedroom homes at and around 4219 N Kilpatrick Ave. Most of those homes were still selling from the $470s to the $600s in June.

- Rate and review Mayfair Crossing at NewHomeNotebook.com.

As I wrote last week, the most expensive units at Park Boulevard are its four-bedroom / 3.5-bath single-family homes, which top out in the $500s. They aren't the lowest-priced new-construction single-families on the South Side - Renaissance at Beverly Ridge appears to hold that distinction - but they are right in line with the detached homes available at Armour Park Homes in Bridgeport and quite a bit lower than those at Bridgeport Village or Arches at Oakwood Shores.

According to Park Boulevard's Web site, all of the project's single-family homes have approximately 2,665 square feet. Residents enter on second floor from a walk-up, and although I can't make out the dimensions listed in the floor plan (at right), it looks like that level has a living room, kitchen, dining / family space and a powder room.

The top floor has a 11' x 16-5" master bedroom with an adjoining master bath, two other bedrooms measuring 10-4" x 10-1" and 10-10" x 9-6", and a second bath.

The lower floor consists of an 11-11" x 11' bedroom, a 10' x 8-5" office, a 15-7" x 12-6" den, a bathroom, a utility room and a washer / dryer closet.

The homes feature hardwood floors in their foyers, living rooms and kitchens, GE stainless-steel appliances, Moen faucets, granite countertops, ceramic bathroom tile and shower surrounds, marble vanity tops, 5-foot tubs, and walk-in showers with glass doors. Every home also comes with a two-car detached garage.

Park Boulevard is bounded by 35th, 36th, State and Federal streets in Bronzeville. Approximately 150 of the 211 single-family homes, condos and townhouses slated for the project's first phase are occupied or ready for delivery.

When I first visited this site, at Oakwood and Drexel in North Kenwood, nearly two and a half years ago, construction appeared to have stopped. The scene was the same on my next two visits, 18 months and a year ago (approximately).

This was the scene yesterday: substantial progress, but still an incomplete mess. The sidewalks along Oakwood are broken and missing in places. The parkways along Ellis and Drexel are not maintained. Only one of the homes appears to be occupied. One has a "for sale" sign on it from a large brokerage firm, but that firm's site has no information on the home.

A company called RENU LLC apparently bought the property from the city years back. Cole-Taylor Bank recently filed a $2.3M foreclosure suit against RENU on at least one of the six homes, 801 E. Oakwood. The Illinois Secretary of State's office has no record of a corporation with that name. That's curious because, in the normal course of things, the city and the bank would have required corporate certificates of good standing before entering into a deal.

Looking back only as far as 2004 there are no records online of any building permits. The property, according to the Assessor's Office, consists of three tax parcels that don't correspond at all to the lot lines for the six homes. The addresses for the tax parcels are 3952 and 3954 S. Ellis and 3947 S. Drexel. Property tax bills are paid to date, and the bills go a a woman who's also listed as the recent buyer of one of the homes.

In brief, this scenario doesn't add up at all. Does anyone out there have any info?

The current issue of our New Homes Magazine looks at the ever-escalating amenities found in North Shore homes.

A focus on big-ticket amenities can easily obscure the importance of paying attention to the small details that make a livable. Join developer Michael Hughes for a 4-part video walk-through of this newly-built classic Winnetka home where no detail appears to have been overlooked.

The home, at 339 Linden St, is listed for sale at $3,349,900 with Linda Martin of Coldwell Banker's Winnetka North office.

If $3.3M is a bit out of your price range, another new Hughes-built home is on the market for $1,739,000 just up the street at 436 Linden.

I've toured well over 100 North Shore new construction homes over the past several years, and these two easily rank among the best values in their price range. Hughes contends, as a matter of fact, that he couldn't build the 339 Linden home today at the offering price.

CA Development hopes to have all of Mayfair Crossing's 26 single-family homes ready for occupancy within a year, says Barbara O'Connor of Baird & Warner.

The 21 three- and four-bedroom homes still available come in four different floor plans: The Mayfair (PDF) and The Berteau, both priced in the $600s; The Avondale, priced in the $570s; and The Windsor (pictured at right and below), priced in the $470s.

The homes have approximately 2,220 to 3,100 square feet of livable space, 8- to 9-foot ceiling heights, hardwood floors, 42-inch kitchen cabinets, granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, marble and ceramic bathroom finishes, and attached garages, according to O'Connor.

Three homes are ready for delivery, and the rest should be finished in about 10 months, she says.

From the looks of things, Mayfair Crossing residents won't lack transportation options. The development, located at 4219 N Kilpatrick Ave in Old Irving Park, is just south of Metra's Mayfair station on the Milwaukee District North Line (indeed, the railway appears to run alongside the western border of the project) and within a few blocks of the Kennedy Expressway and the Blue Line's Montrose stop.

For shopping, the six corners of Irving Park Road and Milwaukee and Cicero avenues is about five blocks south of the development.

During a recent swing through Kenwood, I noticed these two new single-family homes at 4747 and 4749 S Drexel Blvd.

A contract was signed for the house on the right, but the one on the left, 4747 South Drexel, is still available, and it's listed at $1.15 million, according to Chelton Blackburn of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.

Blackburn says upgrade packages on appliances and flooring are now standard and will be included for free, including a Pro Series appliance package valued at more than $10,000. An elevator, which was originally offered as an optional upgrade, will also be included with the listing price. Blackburn says the elevator is large enough to fit two wheelchairs.

The five-bedroom, 4,400 square-foot home also comes with an attached two-car garage and a parking pad that can accommodate two more vehicles, and Blackburn says there will be a deck on top of the garage.

The house is still under construction, but Blackburn says it should be completed within six to eight weeks.

Last week, I wondered why these fancy Lincoln Park duplexes weren't moving. Today, I'd like to follow that up with another question: Why would someone who is spending close to $1 million on an urban home want to share walls (and, in the case of those duplexes, ceilings and floors) with the neighbors?

In many cases, people buy these places to start families, and families mean children and often dogs, which are the source of plenty of unwanted noise. So if you've got the resources (an extra, say, $1.5 to 2 million), why not just go for the gusto and get yourself a single-family home?

Here's a little roundup of some of the available single-family homes in Chicago's North Side that appear the New Homes Quick Guide this month:

• Hartland Park, 1730 W Wrightwood Ave: 23 four- to six-bedroom single-family homes from $1.6 million
• Urban Sandbox, 1625 N Wolcott Ave: five single-family homes four-bedroom single-family homes for $2.5 million
• Lincoln Park West Collection, 1901 N Lincoln Park West: six five-bedroom single-family homes from $2.9 million to $4.8 million
• 2244 North Orchard, 2244 N Orchard St: three six-bedroom single-family homes from $3.8 million