Abandoned $750,000 Mansion Near Chicago With a Stuffed Bobcat and a Project Car

The title says hunter’s mansion because of what is sitting in the basement. This house in the Chicago suburbs is worth $750,000, and a lot of it has already been packed up or carried out. What is left includes a stuffed bobcat, a basement full of odd things and a project car in the garage.

The exact location stays off this page. I don’t know what happened to this place or why everything was left to rot. Parts of the ceiling have fallen, one room has completely collapsed, and the mold is bad enough that I figured they would end up demolishing it.

What we found

It looked spooky from the outside with snow on the ground, and the architecture is kind of cool. Inside, some of the stuff had already been removed. In one room the ceiling had fallen apart and there was lots of mold. Another room had completely collapsed, bathroom and all.

The kitchen is massive. There was some rose wine, some wine glasses and Christmas decorations. A shelf goes all the way up the wall in the main room. They had already packed up some of the stuff, and it looked like they were cleaning this place out. What was left included some Garfield stuff, really big paintings, something with the Great Lakes on it, another cross, an empty cash register, a beautiful wooden chair and some old vacuums.

The basement felt creepy fast. There’s a chain on the wall, kind of like a dungeon. Somebody’s pictures say happy birthday, and one says Chicago, Illinois with a picture of the skyline. There are Cougar golf clubs, an old train set, a first place bowling trophy from a league in 1974 and a lot of Christmas decorations. There’s a lot of mold down there too. The fridge is still working. It’s still cold, and the freezer still has ice in it.

Then the stuff that makes it the hunter’s mansion. Nutcrackers, for one. A stack of newspapers from 2018. And a stuffed bobcat, falling apart, with teeth that are worth a look. I figured there was probably a lot more than just that, and most of it was already removed. Also a piece of driftwood, some horseshoes and a couple of things I couldn’t identify.

One room had a bunch of kids’ toys and lots of books, like a little secret room. There was a Chicago Wolves hockey puck, a camera lens, a satchel and an old film camera that was all moldy. Clothing was still in one room, and there was a whole room inside a bathroom, which is weird. A motion sensor came on while we were in there.

Upstairs is carpeted. There’s a Chicago skyline on one wall, a no trespassing sign on the inside, and a room that is half mirrors with lots of stickers on them. A giant chandelier hangs near the front door, and the lights work.

The last place to check was the garage. There’s a huge engine, the frame to a car and a whole project car body. I didn’t expect that. It smelled like grass clippings and gas in there, so maybe somebody mowed the lawn recently. There was also a cowboy hat and some cabinets.

Why places like this end up empty

I don’t know why this one was left, but big houses are hard to move. In November 2025, The Real Deal reported on a different house near Chicago. It is 22,000 square feet, was built in 2005 and has been unsold since 2007. It first listed at about $17 million and the asking price is now $6.5 million. The 2024 tax bill was above $94,000, and crews for the owner’s businesses mow the lawn, winterize the house and keep it secure.

A 2016 WTTW story found that sales of large suburban houses were stagnant, with a Crain’s Chicago Business reporter describing a glut of them in some suburbs that was slow to sell.

A house like that costs money every month whether anyone lives in it or not. If it doesn’t sell, it can sit until someone starts cleaning it out.

The last room I checked smelled like gas and grass clippings, and there was a project car sitting in it.