The Home Front

Defaced Wacker House (above) By Don DeBat Old Town’s famed Wacker House, once a pristine landmark at 1838 N. Lincoln Park West, is undergoing a tragic and unthinkable “remuddling” that has totally defaced the “Mona Lisa” of Chicago’s rare surviving Victorian-era properties. Like the 1950 movie, “Sunset Boulevard,” starring Gloria Swanson, today—the once classically beautiful, but aging star—is no longer ready for her close up. In fact, developer and beer baron Frederick Wacke

By Don DeBat Chicago’s North Side home buyers will continue to pay more, and should “act quickly” this summer to grab their share of the American Dream. That’s the advice of 26-year veteran Baird & Warner real estate broker May Jo Nathan, author of the “Chicago North Side Market Report.” The exclusive survey analyzed 2nd quarter April through June of 2026 single-family home and attached townhome and condominium sales in nine neighborhoods—Edgewater, Lake View, Lincoln Park, L