No Baloney: Oscar Mayer's Restored Mansion Is For Sale
(CBS) -- If these walls could talk, they night tell you not to use ketchup on a hotdog.
Once fallen into disrepair, Evanston's Oscar Mayer mansion has been meticulously restored and is up for sale.
CBS 2's Vince Gerasole got a look inside.
Step inside a tribute to the Gilded Age. Every inch of this 1901 mansion has been restored to its original elegance -- and then some.
When you take in the home's carved staircase, elaborate stained glass windows and painted crown moldings, keep in mind a lot it came thanks to hot dogs.
Oscar F Mayer founded his historic encased meat brand in Chicago in 1883. By 1927, his son, Oscar G. Mayer, purchased the Evanston home -- entertaining guests in the top floor ballroom or sitting beside its five fireplaces.
Following Mayer's death here in the mid-1960s, the home was sold and fell into disrepair. Because of its overgrown ivy, it was called the "chia house," but developer Jim Kastenholz saw the potential.
"There's so much of what was originally here was still here," he says. "As a remodeler and a rehabber, that's gold."
Somehow, much of the structure survived: first-floor chandeliers, a crystal front entry, door knobs and perfectly even floors.
The design team worked to recreate missing pieces from the grand staircase, and color-matched and then replaced the mansion's unique exterior Roman brick. Modern touches in the kitchen and bathrooms pay tribute to the mansion's past, proving Oscar Mayer had a way with bologna and much more.
After the extensive work, the asking price for the historic, six-bedroom home is just shy of $3 million.
