26 January 2024
Retired Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood and his wife, Sarah, have placed their six-bedroom, 11,250-square-foot Georgian Revival-style mansion in Winnetka on the market for $8.49 million.
Wood, 46, first shot to prominence in 1998 when as a rookie he struck out 20 players in a shutout. He pitched for the team from 1998 until 2008, and he returned to the club for his final two seasons. Wood currently is a Cubs Ambassador, after previously serving as a special assistant to the Cubs’ president of baseball operations.
In addition, Wood and his wife founded the Pitch-In after-school mentoring program. And on Friday, the Cubs announced that Wood had been elected to the team’s Hall of Fame.
The Woods bought their three-story mansion in an off-market transaction in 2019 through an Illinois limited liability company. Built in 1902 for Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad executive Charles I. Sturgis and designed by architect William Otis, the mansion is encircled by a curved red brick perimeter wall and wrought iron gates.
Inside, the mansion has 5 ½ bathrooms, five fireplaces, a grand staircase with extra-wide steps, wide-band hand rails and hand-carved balusters, along with millwork, wide-cased openings, restored windows, a walnut-paneled dining room and a living room with a fireplace and arched bookshelves.
The kitchen has white marble countertops, top-of-the-line appliances and a Farrow & Ball blue island. Other features include an eating area with curved bay picture windows, a second staircase, a mudroom, a screened porch and a family room with original bookcases and a restored fireplace.
On the second floor, the mansion has a primary bedroom suite with a fireplace and two new walk-in closets, along with three more bedrooms. The third floor has two additional bedrooms, an office and a game room, while the mansion’s basement, which was refinished by the Woods, has an arts and crafts studio, a gym with a sauna, a wine room and a recreation room with a bar.
Outside on the 0.71-acre property are a swimming pool that was installed by the Woods, along with a new pool house that has a bathroom, a washer/dryer, a changing room, storage and a garden shed. The property also includes a new outdoor kitchen, a new pergola, a fire pit, working organic gardens, a brick driveway and a heated three-car garage with extra storage and a workbench.
“This east Winnetka in-town compound is simply out of this world,” listing agent Jena Radnay of @properties told Elite Street. “If you appreciate beautiful, distinguished architecture and understand the cost, the headache and the vision that is needed to restore to a glorious, high-end level of luxury, then this house is unmatched. We have yet to have a house in this kind of premier location in Winnetka, and I can even say in the North Shore. It’s a mecca of beauty, every square inch.”
Radnay told Elite Street that the Woods are moving because they are “changing up things a bit.”
“They have a son graduating from high school, and Chicago will always be their home. That will never change,” she said.
Earlier, the Woods owned a newly built, six-bedroom, 11,000-square-foot mansion in Winnetka, which they bought in 2015 for $3.8 million and sold in early 2020 for $4.15 million. Prior to that, they paid $4.63 million in 2010 for a historic Tudor Revival-style mansion in Winnetka that they sought to raze but ultimately decided against doing so, instead selling that mansion at a loss in late 2013 for $4.18 million.
The Woods also have owned a four-bedroom, Beaux-Arts-style mansion in Lincoln Park, which they bought for $3.32 million in 2008 and sold in 2017 for $3 million; a vintage house in the Old Town Triangle, which they bought in 2004 for $1.3 million and sold in 2008 for $1.2 million; a River North condo that they bought in 2003 for $712,000 and sold in 2005 for $760,000; and a waterfront mansion in Fontana, Wisconsin, that they bought in 2014 for $3.8 million and sold in 2017 for $4.7 million.
The Winnetka mansion that Kerry and Sarah Wood are selling had a $91,357 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year. The mansion is set to be publicly listed on Wednesday, Radnay said, with showings to begin that day.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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