Spring is real estate season here in Chicago, and listings are popping up with everything from lofts in Bucktown to single-family homes for a great deal out in the western suburbs. If you're looking outside the box in your real estate adventure, check out this house built on top of a fortress in West Town.
The townhouse, located at 417 N. Noble in Chicago, looks like someone was inspired by the show "Game of Thrones" and decided to put one of the neighborhood's traditional single-family homes on top of a stone fortress, creating an 1,800-square-foot, tri-level townhouse. Houses placed on roofs of other buildings have become the latest urban housing trend. Major metropolitan areas around the world like London, Vienna, and Hong Kong began the trend by building houses atop old factory buildings, malls, and even churches. The trend soon spread to New York City, and now it's in Chicago. Some real estate critics call this trend an "inane embarrassment."
While the interior of this home boasts a large-ish floor plan with three bedrooms, plus parking and a large deck with great views of Chicago's skyline, it is a bit out of place with the neighborhood architecture, as it sits rather randomly on a dead-end street. The listing on the property states that the initial structure was built in 2003, with the additions happening rather recently.
So while the structure doesn't boast the fame and notoriety of the futuristic "Space House" in Oak Park, the Lakeview Castle, or any of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes around the Chicago area, it is definitely a more unique piece of real estate in the city. If you've ever wanted to say, "Let's go back to my fortress" and $439,900 is within your price range, this might be the house for you.