Lake Geneva mansion sells for $17M

A six-bedroom, 12,280-square-foot vintage lakefront mansion on 20.5 acres in Lake Geneva, Wis. sold on Friday for $17 million — the second-highest amount anyone ever has paid for a home in Lake Geneva.

The mansion, known as Villa Hortensia, sits next door to Lake Geneva’s highest-selling mansion in history, which is the 12-bedroom, 14,145-square-foot Glanworth Gardens mansion on 40 acres that Chicago-area billionaire J. Christopher Reyes and his wife, Anne, purchased for $36 million in January from the estate of the late investment manager Richard Driehaus.

Now, Villa Hortensia has sold in an off-market deal for the second-highest amount ever in Lake Geneva — although it was for a little less than half the record amount that Reyes paid for Glanworth Gardens. Built in 1906 and designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, Villa Hortensia sold to a buyer who has not yet been identified publicly.

The sellers, Ralph and Sally MacDonald, bought the mansion in 1997 and first listed the mansion for $20.75 million in May 2021. They later had it for sale for $18.5 million before taking it off the market, and while it was off-market, real estate agent Wendy Murphy of d’aprile properties, who specializes in high-end sales in the Lake Geneva area, approached the MacDonalds with an offer from a client whose identity she would not share, and a deal was struck.

The Mediterranean-style, Snake Road mansion, which also has Arts and Crafts details, was built for Edwin Swift of the Swift meatpacking family, and he dubbed it Villa Hortensia after his wife, Hortense. The stucco mansion has a red Spanish tile roof, 11 bathrooms, a domed entry hall, a grand vaulted hall on the second floor, oak floors and original woodwork. Outside on the property are 502 feet of level lakefront, two piers, a private boat launch, an in-ground swimming pool, a clay tennis court and original outbuildings, including a three-bedroom guesthouse.

Villa Hortensia, which in the 1940s was known as Edgewood, has been the subject of recent speculation about its fate under a new buyer, including that it likely requires major renovations and could face the wrecking ball.

Other high-priced Lake Geneva-area sales include the $12.75 million sale last year of a 10-bedroom, 13,000-square-foot lakefront mansion to Thomas Tisbo, and the $13 million-plus spent by an Elmhurst woman to assemble previously cut-up condominiums in an Italian Renaissance-style lakefront mansion known as Stone Manor. However, Stone Manor’s units have not yet all been consolidated under her ownership.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

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