LIVING HERE
Boys like big loud trucks.
Tom Earle is proving to be no exception. No Barbie dolls for him. There’s a trucking firm headquartered not far from the city yard, the one that is run by Tom Earle. How is it that some of these giant trucks, having difficulty negotiating the narrow LaSalle Street area, are being allowed to drive through the city yard instead of sticking to doing things privately which they are supposed to do.
How is it that some of these truck drivers have, allegedly, been given the codes to get through the gates? There is such a thing as being a good neighbor but there’s also the issue of liability and public trust. Those fences built around the city yard didn’t exist for a whole lot of years. They were put up because of abuses made by the very people trusted to run the place for the citizenry and not for private business, no matter what kind or where located.
A mansion along the shore of Geneva Lake discreetly sold for $14 million.
John and Sarah Cobb sold their house on Loramoor Drive in Lake Geneva in an off-market deal without word getting out until the sale was complete. In vacation towns like Lake Geneva prices have kept rising despite the overall slowdown in transactions, because sellers have leverage over buyers due to a lack of listings. The house was listed for $14 million and sold at the full asking price. This sale became Lake Geneva’s highest-priced mansion sale since a $17 million sale in October of a Snake Roadhouse that was later torn down.
The upper-end housing market has been hot in Lake Geneva for the past twelve months. A property that listed for almost $8.7 million on 700 Club Drive went under contract to a buyer July 18, five days after going on the market. A South Lake Shore Drive home sold for $12.75 million in April. Maybe with the market being as hot as it is, the Cobbs decided it was time to sell. John Cobb retired as the chief investment officer of Ventas, a company that invests in health care-related real estate. In 2022, the firm reported revenue of nearly $4.13 billion. The Cobbs bought the 1.4-acre site in 2016 for about $2.15 million. They then commissioned the design of the six-bedroom, roughly 8,700-square-foot house. A distinctive feature of the interior is a catwalk that runs through the roof trusses. The three-story exterior has a first floor wrapped in stone, two upper floors that are nearly all window but with shingles surrounding them, and a metal roof. The house is L-shaped, its two sides framing the pool terrace. The property also includes a pier with two boat slips. The sale of the Cobbs’ mansion highlights the booming upper-end market in Lake Geneva this year.
The sale of the Cobb’s Lake Geneva mansion not only showcases the thriving real estate market in the area but the allure to the exclusivity of living in such a great resort town.
Photo Credit: MorganteWilson Architects Ltd. Facebook
