Abandoned $5.2M Airbnb Mansion in Highland Park: Indoor Pool and a Hidden Room

Just outside Chicago in Highland Park, Illinois, there’s a $5.2M lakefront mansion with an indoor pool. The couple who owned it ran into money trouble and rented it out on Airbnb for years. That didn’t bring in enough, so they sold it. The new owner plans to demolish it and build something new.

I got in because a door was unlocked, and I knew I was lucky. I was also nervous, because nobody told me there are Ring cameras on the outside of the house. There are about three of them. The power is off.

What we found

We came around the back to get a view of the lake, and then we were inside. The first rooms have purplish marble that goes all the way around, a mostly destroyed fireplace, a pattern wood floor and a triple wide balcony. White marble columns hold up the entry. I called the staircase a spiral, but it’s more of a wave, in white marble that runs all the way up.

The pool room is the best room in the place. The pool is deep, one of the deepest I’ve seen, with a hot tub next to it. A painted mural covers one wall with fish, dolphins, a mountain and an island in the corner.

While I was in there I saw people walking behind the house. A sign says beach front access is off limits, and I couldn’t tell if they were supposed to be there. At one point I thought I was about to be in trouble and hid a little. They turned out to be walking around the property, and it was close.

Upstairs the bathrooms are the show. One had lights around where a tub used to sit, and a standup shower with gold colored knobs and a rainforest head. The pink marble is big enough to fit about six people. Another room has its own shower.

This isn’t new construction. There are Legos left behind, and small things like that show the house was lived in. What’s happening now is straight up removal of everything. One shower has already had its copper pulled, which someone will scrap for money. There’s mold and water damage upstairs, and a bathtub is missing from another bathroom. The garage is not that impressive compared to the rest, but you could fit two cars in it.

Then there’s a secret passage. The wall behind the pool is cut out, and behind it is a hidden room with two showers. I was hoping for a sauna and a steam room and got showers. It’s still the coolest thing in the house.

The basement is dark. There’s a huge hot tub with a spot for someone to lay down and a spot for three people to sit. One room has a hockey stick, and there’s some alcohol. I wondered if the owners were hockey players. Another is a massive aquarium with a fish still hanging up in it, and behind it is the access panel. Then plumbing, HVAC and a fire control panel, with copper that nobody has taken yet. In a room of mirrors there’s a giant safe with the drywall broken around it, so it looks like they’re about to remove it. The movie room has three tiers of steps and rope lighting, and a giant flat screen would have been on the wall.

The last thing I tried was a staircase down toward the beach. It was locked with a bike lock, and there was room to get under it. Somebody’s tiny dog was down there. I didn’t go all the way, because a dog means an owner nearby, and the view from there was already enough.

Why places like this end up empty

I couldn’t find reporting on this house, so this is about big lakefront houses on the North Shore in general. They often end up as teardowns.

In September 2025 a Kenilworth lakefront estate once listed at $14 million sold for $6.8 million. The new owners plan to demolish the 11,000 square foot house on 1.6 acres along Sheridan Road. The Real Deal said the sale shows that even in exclusive areas, buyers want move in ready properties, not just land.

In Winnetka, buyers paid $12.25 million for a 10,000 square foot house built in 1912 and filed a demolition permit. They cited foundation concerns and repair costs. The village’s Landmark Preservation Commission urged them to restore it and required a historical impact study, and officials have been dealing with what they called a proliferation of teardowns.

This house follows the same shape. The owners couldn’t make it pay, the buyer wants a new house, and the old one is sitting empty while the copper comes out.

Copper out of one shower, a safe waiting to be pulled, and a fish still hanging in the tank.