Billionaire entrepreneur and Groupon co-founder and CEO Eric Lefkofsky, who last year set a Chicago-area home purchase price record when he paid $19.5 million in cash for a vintage mansion on 4 acres on Lake Michigan in Glencoe, has placed his longtime estate in Glencoe up for sale through a pocket listing for $6.45 million.
Lefkofsky, 46, co-founded Chicago-based marketing execution firm InnerWorkings in 2001 and then started several other companies before co-founding Groupon under its previous name, ThePoint.com, in 2007. He became Groupon's CEO in 2013.
As Elite Street reported last year, Lefkofsky paid $19.5 million in August 2014 through a Delaware corporation to buy a 15,800-square-foot lakefront estate from a trust whose beneficiaries are Chicago-based Equity Group co-president David Helfand and his wife, philanthropist Leslie Bluhm. Lefkofsky bought the estate through a private transaction, so the mansion was not listed in the real estate multiple listing service.
His previous estate isn't found in real estate multiple listings either. The asking price comes from marketing material distributed by Susan Maman of @properties.
Maman referred all queries about the property to Beth Wexler of @properties, who recently placed at least one ad for Lefkofsky's estate in a neighborhood newspaper. Wexler told Elite Street that the property is being "privately marketed" and declined to provide any other information.
Lefkofsky and his wife, Elizabeth, paid $1.525 million in 2003 for a 1.56-acre property on which now stands a more than 9,000-square-foot mansion that they then built.
The couple subsequently expanded their property by paying $630,000 in 2010 to buy a 0.29-acre property at the rear of their estate. Other features on the property include a tree-lined driveway, a pool and a pool pavilion.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.