Built in 1921, the three-story, 9,126-square-foot mansion has had a starring role on its Winnetka street now for more than three decades. A 1992 Chicago Tribune headline for a story about the home being placed on a local house walk called the mansion “a “home that’s never left alone.” Then-owner Cynthia Abendshien told the Tribune even back then that “there are a lot of people, especially children, that will knock on the door and ask to see the house.”

It’s not much different today, although the mansion now is set behind a wrought iron fence and gate. On a nice day, a visitor showing up to gawk at the mansion soon will discover that there’s company — other visitors there for the same purpose.

Want to drive past the ‘Home Alone’ house? Or the church? A tour of 12 filming locations around Chicago.

Now, the five-bedroom mansion is set to get its first new owners in 12 years — and six years after the current owners renovated and expanded it. The home has six bathrooms, four fireplaces, an entry staircase that famously was showcased in the film, a recently added family room with 10-foot coffered ceilings and walls of French doors and a kitchen with double islands, bespoke white cabinetry, a hidden pantry, an eight-burner Wolf range, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a built-in banquette. Other features include a second family room, a screened porch, two laundry rooms, a primary bedroom suite with a walk-in closet and a marble bathroom with dual vanities, and a third-floor junior primary suite with built-ins and back yard views.

On the basement level are an indoor sport court, a movie theater and a wet bar. The mansion also has a heated and attached, three-car garage.

The mansion had a $50,066 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

When Posh retired in 1995, a scholarship fund was created in his name that today has provided more than $1.1 million to 114 high school seniors for college or career training.

“The thing that was remarkable about Ed is that he was totally focused on people — people were more important to him than anything, and made everybody feel special,” said retired Village Links General Manager Matt Pekarek. “Technically, he was a golf pro, but really he was an ambassador.”

Posh, 94, died of natural causes on May 2 at his daughter’s home in West Chicago, said his daughter Melissa. He had lived in Glen Ellyn for 50 years.

Born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Posh developed a love of golf from his older brother, Jim, and at 13 became a caddy at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem. He later moved to New Jersey to work as the caddy master at a country club in Haddonfield.

In 1951, Posh joined the Army, building emergency runways for military aircraft in France and Germany, his family said.

After his discharge, he became a caddy master at Brookside Country Club near Bethlehem, and then began working in the winters in Miami, where he met a golf pro named Bill Davis.

Posh followed Davis to a country club in Fort Wayne, Indiana, taking a job as an assistant golf pro. He later worked at St. Charles Country Club and Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn before being hired as the first pro at the village of Glen Ellyn’s new 18-hole course, Village Links, which opened in 1967.

Under Posh’s leadership, the Village Links developed an extensive program of golf lessons for people of all ages and also hosted tournaments. For Posh, that sometimes entailed working seven days a week during golfing season. He developed the course’s programs for junior players, teaching many young people the fundamentals of golf.

Posh mentored numerous future golf professionals and course managers as well, colleagues said.

“He was a consummate golf pro, even though he was at a public course,” said retired DuPage County Judge Patrick Leston, a former Glen Ellyn resident who serves on the scholarship fund’s board. “He treated everyone as if you were at a private club — he knew everyone’s name and was gracious and was always willing to help.”

Posh retired from the Village Links in 1995, but he stayed active as a retired volunteer for the next quarter-century.

“Early on in his retirement, Ed would take a 7-iron and walk around the golf course and poke the weeds and look for golf balls here or there, and he’d get 10 or 15 balls here or there, and if they were decent, he’d see somebody he knew and leave the balls sitting on the next tee for them,” Pekarek said. “Eventually, people would start to catch on that Ed’s out there walking around. It’s a nothing thing, but it was a huge thing — everything was his way of trying to put a smile on people’s faces and connect with them.”

Posh also stayed involved with the scholarship fund that bears his name. When Posh retired, Leston said, friends and colleagues had wanted to celebrate Posh with a dinner, but he demurred. So then some friends and colleagues proposed a scholarship fund and an annual outing, and Posh agreed to it.

Friends and colleagues helped seed the fund, and each year, the fund has held various golf-oriented fundraising events, including shootouts and a 25th anniversary gala celebration.

“He was the spirit of the golf (course) over there,” said Hubert Buehler of Glen Ellyn, who was president of the fund for 10 years. “People came to play because of him — it was a real community golf course. And he was always concerned about making it affordable for people.”

Pekarek noted that the scholarship fund was a key part of Posh’s volunteer work.

“He’d work two, three, four months during the summer, 30 to 40 hours a week, all on a volunteer basis, organizing the (scholarship) tournament,” Pekarek said.

The fund typically awards scholarships to four high school seniors a year.

A marriage ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter, Posh is survived by five other daughters, Molly Molokie, Margaret, Mindy and Monica, and Meredith Horvath; three sons, Max, Matthew and Mitchell; two stepdaughters, Michelle Pond and Marea Pond; 21 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and a sister, Mary Jane Pfeiffer.

Services were held.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

A native of Buffalo Grove and Lake Forest, Vaughn, 54, hit it big in Hollywood films starting in the mid-1990s, and he made headlines locally in 2005 and 2006 for dating actress Jennifer Aniston. Though Vaughn, who now lives in Southern California, is no longer known to own any homes in the Chicago area, he owned two expensive properties in Chicago in the 2000s and 2010s.

In River North, Vaughn paid $1.4255 million in 2005 to buy the townhome in the 26-unit City Club development from its builder, Silvermoon Properties. The following year, he paid $12 million for the top three levels of the Palmolive building on the Gold Coast.

Vaughn later rented out the River North town home before selling it in 2015 at a loss, for $1.4 million. He then sold the Palmolive triplex in two pieces in 2016, unloading the top two floors for $8 million and selling the 35th-floor unit for $4.1 million.

Recently renovated, the extra-wide town home has four bathrooms, an open floor plan, a kitchen with custom cabinetry, an island and Viking, Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances. The town home also has a balcony off the main level, a living room with a gas fireplace, a primary bedroom suite with a custom walk-in closet and a primary bathroom with a double vanity and a marble steam shower. The top floor has an additional living space with a wet bar and wine refrigerator and opens to a rooftop terrace.

One unusual feature of the town home: a three-car garage, which opens to a special gated courtyard.

The sellers paid $1.725 million for the town home in 2020. They first listed it in 2022 for $1.85 million and cut their asking price to $1.75 million later that year. They increased their asking price to $1.8 million early this year before reducing their asking price to $1.75 million and then to $1.725 million before finding a buyer in April.

Listing agent Diana Grinnell did not respond to a request for comment.

Public records do not yet identify the buyers.

The town home had a $30,766 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year. It also has a $7,944-a-year homeowners association fee.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

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“He loved everything about the industry,” said his daughter, Lisa Blumberg. “He loved looking at property, he loved negotiating and he loved making deals.”

Philipsborn, 97, died of complications from a massive stroke on May 3 that he suffered while vacationing in Florida, his daughter said. He was a resident of the Streeterville neighborhood.

Born in Chicago, Philipsborn grew up in Glencoe and graduated from New Trier High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Lake Forest College in 1950, and he then served in the Merchant Marine during the Korean War.

After his time in the military, Philipsborn joined H.F. Philipsborn & Co., which his father, Herbert, had formed in 1929. He became president in 1966, succeeding his father, who became chairman and stepped back from the business.

Particularly as the Chicago area developed after World War II, the company would serve as a construction lender for various developers.

“He knew if the numbers made sense or not,” said Philipsborn’s nephew, Andrew, who today is president of The Philipsborn Co. “There was so much growth here after the war, with a lot of development going on, and his generation really was part of it.”

Andrew Philipsborn said that into the 1960s and ‘70s, the city still had a number of “old-line, privately held family mortgage banking companies.”

Herbert Philipsborn died in 1969 and the following year his son sold the firm to Illinois Central Industries. In 1981, Thomas  Philipsborn was part of the group that bought the firm back from what at that point was known as IC Industries, giving it its current name, The Philipsborn Co.

Philipsborn was president and chairman of the firm for several more decades.

Gary Chaplin, the former head of U.S. mortgages for Canadian insurance firm Manulife, called Philipsborn “a master at structuring real estate financing to make it successfully work for both the owner and the lender.”

Chaplin also recalled how impressed he was that Philipsborn was willing to introduce Chaplin to several of his large clients.

“This was unique for us, as with two exceptions, this had not happened with other mortgage banking companies representing (us) throughout the U.S.,” Chaplin said. “But he had lived real estate all his life as his father had founded the company, and Tom, as a result, knew a lot about Chicago real estate, past and present.”

Around 2000, Philipsborn stepped back from daily work at his firm, although he remained its chairman. Instead, he began putting together equity partners in real estate deals instead of providing mortgage financing on properties for client developers and investors.

However, Philipsborn continued coming to the office until he was 93 years old, his nephew said. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was what ultimately kept him at home, his daughter said.

“He loved his work,” Andrew Philipsborn said. “All these deals were his life.”

Philipsborn served as president and director of the Chicago Mortgage Bankers Association, a director and vice president of the North Dearborn Association, a life trustee at Francis W. Parker School and as a director at Chicago Sinai Congregation.

One of Philipsborn’s major roles at Chicago Sinai was to help the synagogue find property and negotiate the deal to move to where the congregation is located now. The synagogue moved from Hyde Park to its current location at 15 W. Delaware Place on the Near North Side in 1996, his daughter said.

In addition to his daughter and nephew, Philipsborn is survived by his wife of 63 years, Betty; three other daughters, Ellyn McCrea, Anne and Mari; and five grandchildren.

A celebration of life service will be held this summer.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

A Michigan native, Cronenworth, 30, debuted in 2020. The two-time All-Star signed a seven-year, $80 million contract extension with San Diego early in 2023.

In the West Loop, Cronenworth’s new place is a corner unit with 3 ½ bathrooms, herringbone entry foyers, arched doorways, an Atelier Jouvence fireplace in the living room and a kitchen with Miele, Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances.

The condo was first listed for $3.149 million in 2021, while the building was still under construction.

Timothy Sheahan of Compass, who represented Cronenworth, told Elite Street that his client had a connection with the West Loop building’s developer. However, Sheahan said he did not know why a ballplayer from Michigan who currently plays for a Southern California team chose to buy a place in Chicago.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

“He was one of the unique people in the office in that he wasn’t a member of a ward organization,” said U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen, a former city assistant corporation counsel who worked alongside Pounian. “He was there for his ability. Mayor Daley was impressed with his Ph.D., and of all the people in his administration, I think (he) was more often asked for his opinion than he was told to do something.”

Pounian, 97, died of natural causes on May 12 at the Admiral at the Lake senior living community in the Uptown neighborhood, said his son, Steven. He had lived in Uptown since 1950.

Born Charles Arshen Pounian in Chicago, Pounian was the son of Armenian immigrants who ran a tailor shop at the base of the now-demolished Spanish Manor apartment complex in the 1000 block of Sheridan Road in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Nicknamed “Arch” after his middle name, Pounian grew up in the Edgewater neighborhood, and after graduating from Senn High School in 1944, he served for two years in the U.S. Army, his son said.

Pounian received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Lake Forest College, and a master’s and doctorate in psychology from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

In 1953, Pounian took a job with the city of Chicago as a personnel examiner. He worked his way up in the department, soon overseeing employment test construction. In 1960, Mayor Richard J. Daley, who called him “Doc,” named him head of the department, which at that time was titled the Civil Service Commission. In 1976, the department’s name was changed to the Personnel Department, and Pounian’s title was changed to commissioner.

Pounian’s daughter, Lynn, called her father “aggressively apolitical” and said he created programs to address the development of opportunities for those previously shut out of municipal jobs due to the patronage system, among them courses in executive and supervisory development that were made widely available. He also instituted a tuition reimbursement program for all city employees to give them opportunities to improve their skills and get promotions based on merit, not patronage, she said.

“He created classes out there for people to pass tests, and the only way to pass the exams was to learn how to get the job done,” she said. “He promoted women into top positions, along with Blacks and Hispanics, and he had to fight a lot of people to do that. I think what you saw was what you got with him — there was no underlying agenda other than to do the right thing.”

“He was a man without guile,” Aspen said. “He was a person of great integrity, and had he not been there at the time he was, things would have gone a lot slower and it would have been a lot more difficult to get where we are today.”

NPR journalist Scott Simon, a Chicago native, was a friend of the Pounian family since his teens and recalled Pounian as “funny, wry and wise,” as well as a valuable source when he began his career.

“When I became a reporter, he was very open about who might know what at (City) Hall, and I never, and I mean never, heard him speak ill of anyone,” Simon said. “This is, as I don’t have to tell you, so rare in any workplace, much less a rough-and-tumble City Hall.”

Simon said he was inspired and touched by Pounian’s “clear and strong idea of public service.”

“He felt that being of service to others was a life worth living — it didn’t have to ‘lead’ anywhere,” Simon said. “It was a noble life to be of service to others in the everyday ways that city employees could help.”

Pounian steered the city’s Personnel Department through changing circumstances, including the Shakman decrees of the 1970s and early ‘80s that barred political patronage and prevented City Hall employees from being fired for not supporting a specific political candidate or party.

Pounian remained commissioner of personnel under three other mayors: Michael Bilandic, Jane Byrne and Harold Washington. After Washington hired a new chief of staff, Pounian left City Hall in 1985, taking a position as a senior consultant at The Hay Group, a human resources firm.

Pounian oversaw all public sector management consulting in the company’s Chicago office. In his work there, he improved personnel systems and policies for a variety of government clients, including Cook County, states, cities, counties and various school districts around the Midwest.

“He was very passionate about making civil service equitable — really cleaning it up,” his daughter said. “He wanted to make it something that was reflective of the late 20th century onward, as opposed to something entrenched in strange old Byzantine rules. He was very passionate about making that his second act, after the city.”

Tom McMullen, a Hay Group senior client partner, called Pounian a “trusted adviser” for his clients.

“Arch was a joy to work with, having great empathy and a genuine interest in how others were doing personally and professionally,” McMullen said. “To a large degree, he was the glue that held the Chicago Hay Group office together.”

Pounian retired in 2008 at age 81.

From 1968 until 2008, Pounian taught a government personnel course at IIT as an adjunct professor. In 2005, his son created an endowed psychology fellowship at IIT in Pounian’s name.

Pounian served on the boards of the Uptown Chicago Commission and the Pedersen-McCormick Boys & Girls Club. He also chaired a committee for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, which wrote a model law to develop more equitable personnel standards.

Pounian’s wife of 52 years, Beatrice, died in 2002. In addition to his son and daughter, Pounian is survived by a companion, Marda Gross.

Services are private.

An earlier version of this story omitted the name of the college where Pounian received a bachelor’s degree.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

The Bears hired Waldron in January to replace the recently fired Luke Getsy. Waldron previously held the same role with the Seattle Seahawks.

Built in 1994, the Green Oaks home Waldron purchased has five bedrooms, a two-story foyer, and a family room with a gas fireplace and a shiplap ceiling with barn wood beams. Other features include two staircases, a large living room, a screened porch, a primary bedroom suite with two walk-in closets and heated bathroom floors, and a kitchen that was remodeled in 2020 that has high-end appliances, custom artisan cabinets, quartzite countertops, custom barn wood shelving and a butler’s pantry.

The house’s lower level was finished in 2023 and has a new exercise room, a wine cellar, an entertainment area and a children’s recreation area. Outside are a brick patio and a saltwater in-ground concrete pool, all on a 0.92-acre property.

The home had been listed Jan. 11, and the Waldrons went under contract to buy it a little more than two weeks later. They bought the house through an opaque land trust that shields their identities, but Elite Street confirmed that they were the buyers through other public documents.

Neither Shane Waldron nor Jeff Ohm, the agent who represented the couple in their purchase, responded to a request for comment.

The house had a $21,822 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.

The Waldrons in March sold their previous five-bedroom, 3,160-square-foot house in Issaquah, Washington, for $2.025 million. Meanwhile, Getsy, Waldron’s predecessor, and his wife in April sold their six-bedroom, 5,610-square-foot house in Waukegan for $1.6 million.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

A Michigan native, Goudie, 68, joined ABC 7 in 1980 and has been ABC 7’s lead investigative reporter since 1990.

Goudie first moved to Hinsdale in 1987 and with his late wife Teri, who died in 2022, owned three other houses in the DuPage County suburb before building the French chateau-style mansion.

“As our family grew, so did our housing,” Goudie told Elite Street.

Through a land trust, the couple purchased their current homesite in 2005 for $1.5 million and hired the homebuilding firm Patrick J. Murphy Builders to construct their 16-room home.

The house has 7-1/2 bathrooms, four fireplaces, a family room with a wet bar and a double-sided fireplace, a screened porch and a basement with 11-foot ceilings, a recreation room, a wet bar and a billiards area. The primary bedroom suite has a private balcony and two bathrooms and closets, and the third floor has a bonus room.

Outside on the 0.46-acre property is a swimming pool.

Goudie previously told Elite Street that with his children grown and him as the only remaining resident of his French chateau-style mansion, he had felt that it was time to downsize, but that he plans to stay in the area. He added that he also intends to remain at ABC 7 for many years to come.

Goudie and his wife had listed the home for $4.2 million in 2015 and then lowered their asking price to $3.995 million in 2018 before taking it off the market in 2019. Then, on May 3, he placed the mansion back on the market for $3.995 million. He accepted a buyer’s offer just five days later, which wound up being for slightly above his asking price.

Public records do not yet identify the buyers.

The mansion had a $53,184 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

Houston-Carson played for the Bears from 2016 until signing with the Baltimore Ravens as a free agent in 2023. He later joined the Houston Texans and currently is a free agent.

In Barrington Hills, the couple’s new home was built in 1977, with an addition designed by South Barrington-based Reed Architects. Features include 4 ½ bathrooms, three fireplaces, a gallery-style entry, and a kitchen that was updated in 2016 that has a 16-foot island, marble countertops, a Wolf Range, a Wolf double oven, two Bosch dishwashers, custom cabinetry and two sinks with polished nickel fixtures.

Other features include a family room with vaulted ceilings, a screened porch, a mudroom with built-in storage and a four-car, extra deep garage. The house’s primary suite has large walk-in closets and a full basement that is framed out and able to be finished.

Outside on the property are a pool and a patio.

The house had been listed for $1.45 million in May 2023 and was reduced to $1.35 million the following month and then to $1.295 million in August.

Scott Glazer of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, who represented the couple, told Elite Street that Elizabeth Houston-Carson is from the Chicago area, and that the couple was looking for a new home with acreage and privacy.

“They didn’t want a cookie-cutter subdivision, and in Barrington Hills, the average acreage is 5 acres. And Barrington Hills has great schools,” he said. “The home is very, very nice — it’s their forever home.”

The Barrington Hills home had a $17,991 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.

Meanwhile, in Hawthorn Woods, the Houston-Carsons had paid $665,000 in 2021 for the house that they sold last year. Built in 2005 and situated on a half-acre lot at the end of a cul-de-sac and adjacent to the Hawthorn Woods Country Club, the home has 4 ½ bathrooms, a two-story family room with a fireplace, a home office and a kitchen with 42-inch Shilon cabinets with soft-close technology, granite countertops, a marble backsplash, stainless steel appliances and an island with quartzite countertops.

Other features include a primary suite with a sitting area and a walk-in closet with custom built-ins, and a lower level with a full kitchen with KitchenAid appliances, plus a movie room with a 100-inch screen and LED color-changing lighting. Outside on the 0.51-acre property are an extended paver patio, a gas fire pit with logs and an in-ground sprinkler system.

The couple first listed the Hawthorn Woods house in July for $799,000 and they sold it less than two months later for basically the same price.

The house had a $14,714 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

Built in 2021 and designed by the Morgante Wilson architectural firm, the mansion has three floors for living including a walkout lower level. It also has six full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, a fireplace in the family room, and steps down to the private beach, all on a 0.75-acre property.

“The beauty of (this house) is that it’s built for today’s living,” listing agent Jena Radnay of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate told Elite Street. “It’s pristine and like-new, so it’s a one-stop shop without having to design and build a house on the lake — it’s all done for you. It’s efficient and it makes great sense for someone that wants to snap their fingers and be in the most beautiful spot on the lake.”

Radnay said the mansion’s first-floor primary bedroom suite is one of the s most attractive features. The primary suite “is really ideal for people who are designing houses today.” She also noted that because the mansion is situated toward the back of the lot and thus close to the lake, “it feels like the water is beneath you all the time.”

Public records show that the mansion’s owner is a limited liability company whose owners include a retired airline executive. Records show that that the LLC paid $4 million in 2018 for the property and then set about building the mansion.

The mansion had a $188,787 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.

Radnay declined to comment on why the owner has listed the mansion. If it sells for anywhere near its asking price, it would be the Chicago area’s highest-priced residential sale of the year. Thus far, the area’s highest-priced sale in 2024 is a $9.3 million sale of a condominium on Goethe Street on the Gold Coast

Numerous homes along the lake in Winnetka have changed hands for more than $10 million in recent years, and billionaire Justin Ishbia has assembled a 3.7-acre homesite a short distance to the north along the lake at a cost of $33.7 million. He currently is building a mansion on that site, and the total price tag for the construction and the land is $77.7 million.

Lakefront property rights in Winnetka have been in focus recently, as 25 homeowners on Lake Michigan in Winnetka sued the village in early May, contending that a village-approved ordinance aimed at protecting the bluffs along the lake will prevent them from using the portions of their land closest to the lake. The owner of the mansion that just listed for $11.75 million is one of the plaintiffs in that lawsuit.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.