One of the most amazing riverfront homes in the city sold on Friday for a cool $2.25 million. The Harry Weese River Cottage—one of those weird buildings adjacent to the Kinzie Street bridge with the triangular slates on their roofs—hit the market in October for $2.3 million, and its buyers managed to snag it for $50,000 less than the asking price.
The cottage, located at 365 N Canal St, has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. At 4,100 square feet, it's not as spacious as a lot of listings in its price range, but its stunning postmodern interior design goes a long way in making up for that. It also has a 45-foot private boat dock, which is ideal for a seafaring Chicagoan (except, you know, in the winter).
Weese, an architect born and raised in the Chicago area, designed the cottages in the late 1980s. The one that just sold was built in 1988 and is one of four townhouses within the pair of attached buildings. The sloped exterior on the eastern side of the building aligns with the angle of the defunct and perpetually-raised Kinzie Street railroad bridge on the other side of the river. According to a 1990 article in the Tribune, Weese got the idea for their design while traveling through Budapest in the late 1950s. While there, he came across a development on the Danube River where the communist government "apparently had allowed architects to do whatever they wanted."
Chicago architecture aficionados are certainly glad he took that trip, as the cottages have one of the most distinct designs along the downtown riverfront. The buildings look most striking when viewed from a boat on the river, which most river architecture tours in the city are quick to point out.
Weese is also known for designing the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop (which could very well be the prettiest prison in America), the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in Milwaukee and the first group of stations in Washington D.C.'s Metrorail system.
Photographs by Jeff Bara/Courtey Redfin