Niklas Hjalmarsson is no longer a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, so it’s no surprise that he’s put his Lakeview home on the market to be sold, per Curbed Chicago. The five-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion, which unsurprisingly looks gorgeous, is going for an asking price of $3.199 million.
But that’s not really what’s interesting about this news after Hjalmarsson’s trade to the Arizona Coyotes. No, what’s great about this house is that it has a yard on the side, which was created by purchasing the property next door and knocking it down.
From Curbed:
Hjalmarsson, who had previously lived in a three-story riverfront townhouse in the Fulton River District, purchased his current residence in April 2015, paying $2.32 million for the new construction. A year later, Hjalmarsson and his wife purchased the neighboring three-flat for $900,000, demolishing the building to use the property as a side yard, Crain’s Chicago Business reports.
So the guy already had a beautiful brand spankin’ new multi-million dollar house in Chicago, but hey, having a yard is pretty sweet. Sometimes you gotta spend close to another million to make that happen by buying the neighbors’ place and knocking it down.
(I sincerely doubt I’ll ever have this much money, but I imagine it’s pretty enjoyable to not have a yard and have “let’s buy the neighbors’ place to knock it down” as a not-totally-stupid suggestion.)
Here’s a look at the house, credited to VHT Studios via Curbed:
Based on that simple math, Hjalmarsson spent $3.22 million between those two purchases, so he’s actually asking for less than that at $3.199 million. So errrr it’s a steal!
Anyway, you can check out more pictures of the house, which is really quite nice, over at Curbed. Hopefully now that he’s moving to Arizona, he can find a place that already has a big yard to simplify the process.