Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
Winnetka, Illinois, is a cocoon of wealth, where lakeside homes can fetch $12 million, parking lots teem with Land Rovers and Teslas, and comparatively poor households still might earn $225,000 per year. But even here, in America’s ninth-richest town, locals are astonished, even appalled, at the way a billionaire is splashing out.
Since 2020, private equity mogul Justin Ishbia—a co-owner of the Phoenix Suns—has acquired four properties along Lake Michigan, three of which are contiguous. He tried to swap the fourth parcel with the village last year in exchange for land it owned between his properties, but the deal went epically awry and is now either dormant or dead.
Undeterred, Ishbia is using his three adjacent lots to build the house of his dreams. A very vocal contingent of Winnetkans, who claim the home will span 68,000 square feet, aren’t happy about having a palace in their midst.