The Armour's estate sold last week for $7.2 million, marking it as the highest price paid for real estate in Lake Forest this year.

The Lake Forest estate owned by the late Andrew W. Armour III and Sara Wood Armour sold last week for a whopping $7.2 million, making it the highest paid price for a local single-family property this year.
The Bluff’s Edge Drive lakefront property was sold in two separate transactions on the same day. According to Crain’s, the 7,800-square-foot home sold for $4.4 million while the two-acre vacant lot next door sold for $2.75 million. Eleanor Dowling of Koenig & Strey Real Living, who represented both the buyer and seller in the transaction, declined to comment on the identities of the parties involved.

The high-end property sold fairly quickly in a challenging market, said Dowling. “Some lakefront homes have sat on the market for two or three years – or even longer.”
Dowling went on to point out that homes on the lake command premium prices, which can be 35% higher than similar inland real estate. Jean Royster of Coldwell Banker commented on the transaction saying, “Bluff’s Edge Drive, the site of the Armour home, appeals to some buyers because it has more of a “natural, country estate” feel compared with the more manicured, stately lakefront homes further north on Lake Road.”

Data from Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) shows that only three homes in Lake Forest have sold for more than $4 million, with all closing since May, in the past year. The average market time for the three properties was 698 days – nearly two years.

Jeannie Emmert of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage told Crain’s that Lake Forest real estate prices have dropped enough that some of the most expansive homes there are considered a value. Emmert was the listing agent for a home on Onwentsia that sold for $5.5 million last May. She said, “There are people that have the money – that wasn’t necessarily the problem – but prices have come down to where these homes are good buys.”