A vintage 6,455-square-foot mansion on the shore of Lake Michigan in Lake Forest sold in January for $6.27 million to the couple next door.
David and Diana Moore, who founded Waukegan-based Woodland Foods in 1990 and sold the company in 2021, bought the vintage mansion, which is next door to their own home. Although the couple purchased the vintage mansion through an opaque Delaware limited liability company, public records and several real estate sources in Lake Forest confirmed that the Moores were the home’s buyers.
Built in 1899 and designed by architect Arthur Heun, the vintage mansion was owned in the early 1930s by Donald M. Ryerson, the chairman of the board of his family’s steel company, Joseph T. Ryerson & Son. After Donald M. Ryerson’s death in 1932, his widow, Isabelle, owned the mansion until her death in 1976.
More recently, Desmond LaPlace, the former vice chairman of ACCO Brands, had owned the vintage mansion for several decades until his death in September at age 91. LaPlace’s estate sold the property to the Moores.
Because the mansion sold in an off-market transaction, few details are available about its condition. However, the mansion underwent significant renovations in 1957 by architect Herman Lackner, according to an historic report submitted to the city of Lake Forest in 2020.
In 2020, LaPlace expanded his spread to a total of 4.36 acres by buying the 1.52-acre property immediately west of his for $1.1 million and then demolishing a single-family home on that acquired property. That now-demolished house at one time had been used as a stable for LaPlace’s home.
Now, the Moores have bought both of LaPlace’s parcels. The Moores did not respond to a request for comment that was placed by Elite Street to a representative.
The two parcels that the Moores purchased had a combined $95,089 property tax bill in the 2022 tax year.
In Lake Forest, the $6.27 million sale price has been eclipsed in recent months only by the $7.75 million sale in November of a seven-bedroom, 7,566-square-foot mansion on the lake. Immediately to the north of the vintage mansion that the Moores just purchased is an 11,846-square-foot mansion that the estate of Nancy Hughes, who was the widow of filmmaker John Hughes, sold in late 2022 for $12.92 million.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.