The national organization for the Baha’i Faith, which oversees the landmark Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, paid more than $1.51 million on Oct. 3 for a vintage four-bedroom, all-brick, Mediterranean-inspired house on Sheridan Road in Wilmette that is south of its campus.
The transaction is the latest home purchase by the nonprofit National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, which since 2014 now has paid $8.97 million to buy six houses on the block immediately south of its campus.
Since it was completed in 1953, the Bah’ai House of Worship — also known informally as the Baha’i Temple — has stood at 100 Linden Ave. in Wilmette, at the northwest corner of Sheridan Road and Linden Avenue. However, until the past decade, leaders of the temple, which was approved for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, had not acquired any real estate adjacent to the temple in any meaningful way.
Now, the temple’s leaders have made their sixth home purchase in the past decade. George Davis, the director of the Baha’i Temple, told Elite Street that the decision to buy the home “is consistent with the goals previously shared — that is, (it’s) part of the long-term investment strategy of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States.”
“The new acquisition allows us to support preservation and beautification of the neighborhood near the Baha’i Temple,” Davis told Elite Street. “None of the homes acquired has been demolished and no such plans are being considered.”
Davis previously has said that the Baha’i Faith’s national organization receives a steady stream of rental income from the homes it now owns.
Built in 1919, the house had been listed in September on the open market for $1.25 million. The house previously had sold in 2020 for $1.1 million.
The home has 4½ bathrooms, two fireplaces, an eat-in kitchen with a large island and high-end appliances, a mudroom, a second-floor family room with custom built-ins and a wet bar, a primary bedroom suite, a third floor with flexible living space and an attached, heated, two-car garage. The house lacks a basement.
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Outside on the 0.16-acre property are a fenced backyard and two stone patios.
The temple’s leaders already had owned five of the 10 houses on the half-block immediately south of the temple. With this newest purchase, their land ownership interests now have ventured south of an alley for the first time, and the organization now owns the first of a total of 10 homes on that half-block.
The Sheridan Road home had a $24,591 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.