Our Journey.
Before buying home, we’d already owned and lived in three very different properties. Our first was an abandoned 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse in the city that we turned into a loft, recording studio, and design agency. A few years later came a century-old Craftsman in Chicago, which we restored from top to bottom, staying true to its original character.
As time passed, we craved more quiet and space, so we built a custom home on a pond in the northwest suburbs in 2006. It was beautiful, but also the definition of “cookie-cutter.” By 2014, the itch for something with real character—and space—returned.
That’s when we stumbled upon 30766 N. Gossell in 2015. The listing price was $450K at the time, but the place looked rough. We almost skipped it entirely, but something about the property caught my attention on Google Earth. Over the course of 9 months, Carol, the previous owner, started dropping the price. So, we drove out—and immediately we knew this was the one.
The rolling acres had soul. The house, on the other hand, was a disaster—neglected, beaten down, and barely holding on. But it had a commanding undeniable presence.
The Backstory.
Carol, the original owner, built the home and poured her heart into it. The limestone hardscape alone was a labor of love. In 2006, she refinanced the property—then appraised at $920K—to pursue a new venture in Wisconsin. She rented the home to a Chicago attorney with four sons under a rent-to-own agreement.
Unfortunately, the situation spiraled. The father vanished into the party scene, leaving the teenage boys unsupervised. According to neighbors, the property became the party house of Lake County—wild weekends, endless noise, and police visits. It took Carol four long years to evict them.
When we met Carol at closing in December 2016, she was exhausted from the ordeal and just wanted to get out of the property with enough proceeds to payoff the HELOC note she had taken out on the property. We thought we’d scored the deal of a lifetime. That optimism lasted until we got the keys.
Photo of the house from 1990 when Carol finished it. Note the mature Ash trees.
Click photo to enlarge
How it looked when we bought it.
2017: Year of the Lumberjack
The house was uninhabitable, which we expected. What we didn’t anticipate was the devastation caused by the Emerald Ash Borer infestation that impacted the broader Midwest. Twenty-three massive Ash trees had died or were dying along the ridgeline.
Like any over confident Gen-X DIYer, we turned to YouTube, bought a chainsaw, and started felling trees. Cutting down a 15-footer was thrilling; tackling a 90-foot ash was not. We hired crews to remove the rest, and soon the property looked like a lumberyard.
Then came another bright idea—we’d split all the logs ourselves. Two weeks later, we had a mountain of firewood taller than Everest. We tried burning it, but it would have taken a year. Eventually, we posted on Craigslist, met wonderful folks who heated their homes with wood, and even found someone—Jeff—who helped clear the rest for free.
By spring, the land was open again, and for the first time, we could drive across the property without weaving around fallen logs.
2017 – 2018: Major Rennovations
In the spring of 2017, we turned our attention to the house.
Demolition revealed a level of neglect only a hoard of drunken teenagers could cause. We tore out walls, replaced subfloors, reimagined the floor plan, and raised ceilings by rerouting HVAC, electrical, and gas lines.
One of our biggest victories was hiding a massive kitchen header beam inside the ceiling to preserve the vaulted ceiling lines. But as the walls came down, it became clear: this wouldn’t be a one-year project.
By 2018, we were deep into the remodel. Every system—HVAC, plumbing, flooring, insulation, kitchen, bathrooms, walls, water filtration—were replaced, upgraded, redesigned, or remodeled. We kept just two things from the original home: the ceiling beams in what we appropriately call the “rustic room”, which we refinished, and the Carrara marble tiled fireplace on the upper level that somehow grew on us.
2019: Move in
We moved in early 2019. The house wasn’t finished but finally livable. That year, we shifted focus outdoors. The land had gone wild: four-foot grass in the pasture, broken fence rails, and driveway potholes.
We hauled in 30 tons of 4” limestone and had a new road built to connect the main house to the outbuilding, creating easier access and additional parking spaces.
The first mistake we made was to approach the land as if we were still living on a ‘sub-division’ plot. We purchased $1,500 in pellet fertilizer from Home Depot and tried to manually spread 6.5 acres. Needless to say, we looked like imbecile newbies. Thankfully, our then neighbors Russ and April were well versed in maintaining large acreage and turned us onto ‘liquid fertilizer’. But to spray it, we needed some tools. So an ATV was purchased, a broadcast tow behind sprayer, aerators, and a plethora of equipment. After a season, we could have opened up our own lawn care business.
And then there were the golf balls—thousands of them buried across the property, left by the infamous attorney’s kids. At first, it was funny. By the 10,000th one, not so much. Still, at day’s end, standing at the ridge, watching the sunset, made every bit of sweat worth it.
2020: More Renovations
In 2020, we shifted focus back to the house—new solid-core doors, new flooring, full spray-foam insulation throughout the lower level and hundreds of details and finish work.
2021: Accidental Hobby Farm
Because the land was AG-zoned, we qualified for an agricultural tax exemption if we maintained livestock for two years. Having zero experience, I posted on Craigslist offering a few acres for someone to use as a small farm. A Chicago police officer answered and brought in chickens, ducks, and Nigerian dwarf goats.
The first year went great. By the second, not so much—he lived too far away. When the animals were neglected, we stepped in. That’s how we became accidental farmers.
Feeding animals at sunrise and collecting eggs turned out to be both a mind numbing chore yet magical at the same time. Hauling 100 gallons of water daily for ducks in winter—not so much. Breaking frozen water troughs every morning was brutal, but we’d be rewarded with fresh eggs daily by the very ‘curious’ hens. The goats, meanwhile, were expert escape artists. We spent countless hours chasing them down but ultimately learned how to shepard the flock.
Eventually, the officer moved the animals elsewhere, but we missed them terribly. Caring for them brought a sense of fulfillment we hadn’t expected. So we decided to build our own small “Western-style” hobby farm.
2022 – 2025: Slow and Steady
In 2022, we replaced the roofs on both the house and outbuilding with 50-year architectural hurricane rated shingles. Expensive, but necessary. We enclosed the pasture with new fence lines for the hobby farm. We also addressed the front façade, installing extensive retaining walls and pavers. We refinished the exterior decks as a temporary stop-gap, with future plans to rebuild the decks with composite decking and glass rails. We prioritized the pasture in preparation to build our ‘Western themed’ hobby farm, which we had amassed various lumber, paint, and roofing materials.
Pool quotes were procured and we had planned on working on it, but too many projects delayed the pool, so we pushed it off until 2023.
In 2023, life circumstances changed, and all plans were put on hold.
In 2024, fence line repairs were performed and extensive brush cleanup on the pasture side reclaimed about ¼ of an acre from the brush. Brush never sleeps on the property and grows at dizzying speeds. Cutting back the brush was an arduous process of removing 5” saplings, branches, and buck thorn on the pasture side of the Ridgeline. We burnt it all at the ‘burn pit’ and we had epic bonfires that could be seen from Canada.
In 2025, we finished the gym, laundry room, and installed a new bar. The attached heated 3-car garage was completely remodeled – doors, epoxy floors, and base. All HVAC and garage heaters were serviced, and various little odds and ends were completed. It finally felt complete—or as complete as a property like this can ever be
