Carisa C. Chappell

After some long-distance dating, Josh Kaufmann and Jennifer Gates lived together briefly in Indianapolis before moving to Mr. Kaufmann’s native Chicago in 2020. The couple, who married in 2022, were renting a two-bedroom in the South Loop, just outside downtown, but knew it was temporary.
“I wanted some floors and spaces where we could do our own things and not necessarily feel like we’re on top of each other,” said Mrs. Kaufmann, 42, a lead coach with Chicago Public Schools. Their opportunit...

Bert Fox and David Pickett bounced around rental apartments for almost a decade in Andersonville, a neighborhood on the north side of Chicago known for its 19th-century rowhouses and quirky shops.
Mr. Fox would scan the local listings for places to buy. “We had been thinking we needed to save up more,” Mr. Pickett said. “But he saw something really cute, and it was reasonably priced, so that kind of kicked off our home-buying journey.”
The time had come to find a permanent home for themselves...

With two children under 5, a couple of first-time buyers wanted a three-bedroom house with a yard to play in and an easy commute to their new jobs. Here’s what they found.
Homeownership wasn’t exactly on the Tinklenberg family’s radar last year. Evan Tinklenberg had just finished graduate school in Chicago and landed a job as a campus pastor at Geneva Campus Church in Madison, Wis. His wife Kim, a nurse, was starting a new job at the University of Wisconsin’s cancer center.
They had always re...

When you have a 9,700-square-foot house that exudes extravagance, Hollywood comes calling. No wonder, then, that the mansion at 1521 North State Parkway, now for sale at $7.7 million, has been featured onscreen several times, including in the Fox TV drama Empire and the Mel Gibson romantic comedy What Women Want. Built in 1894, the six-bedroom Gold Coast residence was designed by George Maher, an influential architect known for bucking traditional styles by mixing in modern designs. It was re...

The great divide that prevents Black developers from reaching their full potential is access to capital. They are often competing against generational wealth, expansive real estate development experience, and perception bias, making already-hard-to-secure capital even tougher.
Amid broad acknowledgment of those issues, a growing number of funding sources emerged during the 2020 pandemic, whether from nationally run programs or from smaller state- or community-based initiatives that recognized...

Call it the Barack effect: Throughout Woodlawn, new homes are rising on vacant lots, and neglected properties have been rehabbed as anticipation builds for the Obama Presidential Center. The South Side neighborhood — first a community of Dutch farmers in the mid-19th century, then home to Black migrants from the South starting in the early 1900s — is just west of the presidential center’s Jackson Park site. Stroll through the rapidly gentrifying community to see stately greystones and brick h...

A Mies van der Rohe descendant carried on the family style with this mansion.
Passersby are always curious about the contemporary terra cotta mansion on a corner lot at 1856 North Mohawk Street in Lincoln Park. That’s not surprising, since it was designed by Dirk Lohan, responsible for the eye-catching Abbott Oceanarium addition to the Shedd Aquarium, the McDonald’s headquarters in Oak Brook, and the controversial Soldier Field renovation. Lohan studied under his famous grandfather, the Germa...

Decarbonizing real estate is crucial in fighting the climate crisis, and with the federal government encouraging building owners through the Inflation Reduction Act to do their part, the industry has many details to examine. In August 2022, the government passed the act, which includes $370 billion over 10 years, an ambitious and historic initiative to help the real estate sector produce and invest in clean energy. An ever-increasing number of lawmakers and building owners recognize that a si...

A couple of longtime Floridians searched the Windy City for a good location (preferably on Lake Michigan), ample bedrooms and minimal stairs. Here’s what they found.
When it came time to leave Florida, Harold and Alison Issen put together a list of their preferred destinations. The couple, who grew up on Long Island but didn’t meet until they were living in the Sunshine State, had raised their family in Orlando. As the years went by and their son and daughter grew up, they felt they had outgr...

As their son moved to the city for college, a couple figured that buying a modest condo near campus could save money in the long run and offer appealing options for the future. Here’s what they found in Chicago’s South Loop.
After their son was accepted into Columbia College in Chicago last year, Brian McCutcheon and Donna Sink started looking for ways to cut down on expenses and make everyone’s life easier. A campus housing policy had kept Angus McCutcheon, now 19, in a dorm as a freshman, b...

In Bronzeville, a piece of 19th-century architecture has been updated for the 21st.
Almost every major city has a Martin Luther King Drive, but none are as storied as Bronzeville’s. Watching the Bud Billiken Parade from the top-floor bay window of an 1881 home offers a view of the community’s past, present, and future.
The recently sold home at 4243 South King Drive sits on an architecturally significant stretch of attached greystones — one of the few areas in Bronzeville that is historically...

Supercharged demand. Record-low inventory. Soaring prices. Welcome to the wildest housing market in recent memory. But good values are still out there. Here’s where to look.

Even in this tight housing market, you can still find a decent deal. Here are eight neighborhoods to consider.
NOTES: Median sale prices are for 2021. For Chicago neighborhoods, the data is for townhouses and condos in the encompassing community area. SOURCE: Midwest Real Estate Data
Bordered by Washington Park and the Midway Plaisance to the north and Jackson Park and Lake Michigan to the east, Woodlawn has long boasted plenty of green space, plus convenient Loop access via the CTA’s Green L...

Benjamin Marshall was one of Chicago’s most flamboyant architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, famous for designing the Blackstone and Drake Hotels, the sprawling South Shore Cultural Center, and many high-rise lakefront buildings that showcased his love of European architecture.
Marshall found inspiration for his buildings in every corner of the world: France, Italy, Morocco, Wyoming. There may be no better example of how he mixed styles than the stone mansion at 4900 South Ell...

An exquisite chandelier shipped from Italy and painstakingly assembled in Chicago hangs above the dining room of this historic Gold Coast greystone at 46 East Cedar Street. The chandelier gives off grand ballroom vibes — only fitting, since the home, which also includes a curved staircase, was built in 1895 for Potter Palmer of the famed Palmer House hotel. It’s now on sale for $2,999,000.
Situated on a quiet block a short walk from the Magnificent Mile, the home is nestled among three other ...