Columnist John Kass, a former Tribune opinion columnist who hosts WGN Radio’s podcast “The Chicago Way,” purchased a four-bedroom, 2,448-square-foot split-level home in St. John, Indiana.
As Streetsblog Chicago first reported, he and his wife bought the house in 2020 for $296,500. Kass, who had previously lived on the Northwest Side and before that in Western Springs, made the purchase through an obscure Indiana land trust.
St. John is approximately 37 miles southeast of downtown Chicago in east-central Lake County.
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Kass did not respond to a request for comment and the real estate agent who represented him and his wife on their purchase, Danielle Lenson, declined to comment on the transaction. However, numerous public records confirm that the couple purchased and live in the St. John home, and that they no longer reside on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
In early 2020, Kass and his wife sold their Western Springs home for $685,000. After that, they lived for a while in the first-floor unit of a three-story building on the northwest side, an experience Kass wrote about in his columns.
On St. John, the split level home they purchased was built in 1979. It has two and a half baths, hardwood floors throughout the main level, a family room with vaulted ceilings, a formal dining room, and an eat-in kitchen with granite countertops. . . The home also has hardwood floors on the upper level and has a lower level with a brick fireplace with a glass door to an outside patio.
The Indiana home, which Kass and his wife bought for more than its asking price of $279,900, had a property tax bill of $2,796 in fiscal year 2021. During his final year in Western Springs in 2019, Kass paid $16,432 in property taxes.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance writer.
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