Surely the four-plus-one has its fans, but in my experience, they’re few and far between. Occasionally you’ll come across a four-plus-one that breaks the mold, just as @properties agent Bob Darrow and I did during our recent walk around Boys Town. Here, you see an example of a renovated four-plus-one on Melrose Street that’s actually pleasing to the eye.
For those that don’t know what a four-plus-one is, below is a great site that provides explanation on this uniquely Chicago term.
http://forgottenchicago.com/features/chicago-architecture/defining-the-four-plus-one/
Dan:
That’s actually the first link in the body of my post. 🙂
I condo converted a very unusual 4+1 at 634-636 W. Webster, fronting Oz Park.
The building had 16 residential units and an office space at ground level, with parking behind it underneath the building.
The building had 8 studio units, and 8 2-story 2-bedroom 1 ½ bath units. There were two duplex units on the east side and two on the west side of the building, both front and back, with the single-floor studio units in the center, front and back. The rear units overlooked an alley while the front ones had great south-facing views of Oz Park. The architect compensated for the view differential by making the rear units larger than the front ones.
In 1978 I sold the building out in about a month, with studios priced in the low $20s and 2-bedroom duplexes in the mid to high $70s. The most recent sales I could find were $170,000 for a studio and $342,500 for a 2-bedroom.
One of my buyers (who shall mercifully go unnamed) bought 4 of the studio units, financing them with 90% individual owner-occupancy loans written by four different branches of the same savings and loan. I was holding 10% second mortgages on the units, and he walked away with cash at the closings from the prorations.