Ferris Bueller Home Goes Off the Market
Ben and Frances Rose house will be for sale again after renovations.
Photos
If only selling a house was as easy as cutting class.
A Highland Park home made famous for its appearance in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off was taken off the market recently to undergo renovations, according to Chicago Now.
"It will be back, and it will be beautiful and we'll be inviting everyone to come see it again," said Coldwell Banker's Meladee Hughes, the home's real estate agent.
The four-bedroom, 5,300-square-foot Rose House and Pavilion dropped in price from $2.3 million in May of 2009 to $1.8 million late last summer, according to Hughes. It was on the market for almost two years.
"This is a very special kind of property," Hughes told Patch in January, "And I have made the mistake of falling in love with it."
Hughes would like to see a major corporation buy the house to use it for retreats.
"They (corporations) have the wherewithal that they could always get publicity for this property," Hughes said.
In addition to its prominence in film history, the home is known as architect, museum curator, and Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) teacher A. James Speyer's best work, according to Landmarks Illinois.
The home is also an unusual estate because it involves the work of two architects: Speyer, who designed the home, and Speyer’s first graduate student David Haid, who designed the pavilion.
"This house and accompanying pavilion are just amazingly superior in their design," Landmark Illinois Director of Advocacy Lisa DiChiera told Patch in January.
DiChiera believes the difficulty Hughes has had selling the estate is "purely a reflection of market."
"It's hard to find people to buy a house for over a million dollars," DiChiera said.
forest barbieri
1:55 pm on Monday, July 18, 2011
I am not sure that the lack of selling is a reflection of the Market as much as it is the price tied to the questionable rationalization that somehow a movie 25 years ago makes it desirable at this kind of a price premium. The house has a very difficult design, lot placement and other features that severely narrow the market of interested buyers. Add to that a price basis that is at least 40% over todays market and you have a problem unless you find that 1/100,000,000 buyer. Perhaps the emphasis on a corporation buying is correct, as only an entity or someone with excess cash to burn and the ability to somehow recoup those monies with perhaps an ad campaign revolving around the house. Of course, the house from Alfred Hitchcock's Psyco could be used as a comp for pricing comparison:)
Norman Rexford
1:23 pm on Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Not to mention the connection to Ben Rose, who was an important textile designer in his day and worked with leading architects and institutions. Find his work at the Art Institute. Fran Rose was remarkable in her own right.
The house is located on the site like none other... you'll never be able to design a home like this again, perched on top of a ravine. More people should take a look at it, even if it's high-brow modernism, I think the setting is so out-of-this-world amazing that a lot of people could fall in love with this home.