Stone Works

By Mark Loehrke
Appears in the August 2024 issue.

This custom-built Downers Grove mansion boasts its own Euro style

Words like “unique” and “one-of-a-kind” tend to get thrown around with relative abandon when it comes to real estate listings, so it’s rare when any home actually lives up to these well-worn marketing tropes. But such adjectives aptly fit the estate at 5317 Turvey Court in Downers Grove, now on the market for $2.5 million.

Meticulously planned and built over a four-year period in the early 2000s, the European-inspired home has sloping rooflines, terraced hardscaping, and an abundance of custom stonework that immediately draw attention. But a closer look around the property becomes a game of I Spy, with every turn revealing hidden designs in areas of both the interior and exterior stone, from a sailboat in the two-story coach house to tree carvings in the light-filled sunroom.

While these design flourishes may enchant some observers more than others, listing agents Elaine Pagels and Brita Pagels of the Pagels Group/Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago believe many of the other grand features throughout the more than 9,400 square feet of living space—including the great room with its stone fireplace and soaring 43-foot beamed cathedral ceiling or the lower-level timber-and-stone pub—are likely to inspire greater unanimity.

Photos: Cris Cunningham