I’ve been futzing around with Redfin today—I’m not in the market or anything, though I do have housing on the brain—but it’s fascinating nonetheless. Especially when you stumble on something like 2801 S. Prairie, which is maybe the nicest house I’ve ever seen.
Update: Ah, it’s a Chicago landmark no less. And there’s a radio documentary about the house and its owner by the outstanding Three Oaks, Michigan-based Long Haul Productions, aka Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison.
Update II: Here’s a 2003 Reader story about the house, which was built in 1885 for a lumber company owner, and a piece by Chicago Magazine‘s Dennis Rodkin from June, when the house went on the market for the first time in its history.
Architect John C. Cochrane‘s fingerprints seem to be all over finer buildings throughout the Midwest, including the beautiful All Saints’ Episcopal Church (“a rare Chicago example of Stick Style design”), the Iowa state capitol, the downstate Livingston County Courthouse, and the Illinois state capitol.