EDGEWATER — For $700,000, someone could be the next owner of the iconic Edgewater Lounge, its famed patio and haunted basement — complete with a secret Prohibition-era poker room, ghosts and all.
Originally priced at $725,000, the historic spot at 5600 N. Ashland Ave. has been the site of The Edgewater Lounge for the past 15 years, only recently closing its doors after being shut down by the city.
Bill Sardegna, who has been marketing the building for its owners on behalf of Marcus and Millichap real estate services, said he's been showing the building since April, giving tours to more than 20 interested buyers.
The building is being sold "as is," and Sardegna encouraged business owners to bring along a contractor to see what types of repairs and renovations would need to go into rehabbing the tavern for its next use.
"I can't hit on enough how iconic it is," he said. "There's a lot of history, it's one of the original speakeasies."
Included in the sale price is the structure's 1,700-square-foot restaurant and kitchen with a second-story two-bedroom apartment and back porch.
The building was first constructed between 1899 and 1901, before Prohibition, and according to a map from 1905 was one of the area's first saloons — at what was then 3323 N. Ashland Ave.
The former Edgewater Lounge today, looking west on Bryn Mawr Avenue, compared to a map from 1905 that listed the building as a "saloon." [Bill Sardenga, City of Chicago]
During Prohibition, the bar was converted into a fake auto parts store as a front, while liquor and gambling raged on in the building's basement and back rooms.
One of those rooms in the basement is still intact, frozen in time behind a sturdy wood door where inside thirsty poker players would spend their nights hidden from sight.
A small mirror and hand sink still stands in the poker room.
"It gave off a really creepy vibe, and the owner told us that the mirror was probably close to 100 years old," said Amy Baxter, an Edgewater resident and amateur paranormal investigator. "We had to clamber through the kitchen to get down there. It was super creepy, freezing cold and we couldn't really figure out why there was a sink and mirror in the room. The mirror was really scary looking, and the owner told us she didn't like coming down to the basement. It felt somewhat nefarious."
In 1970, it was acquired by Mary T. Cefali, known around the bar only as "Mary," who named the tavern The Edgewater Lounge.
Inside the former Edgewater Lounge, 5600 N. Ashland Ave. [Bill Sardenga]
As legend has it, in the 1990s she sold the building to a man by the name of McPartlan who stole all of the bar's valuable fixtures, including the original bar, before attempting to set the building ablaze, Jeff Morris writes in his book, "Chicago Haunted Handbook: 99 Ghostly Places You Can Visit In And Around The City".
The fire didn't take, and it was later bought by its most recent owners David Butler and Donna Skach.
Throughout the years, visitors to the tavern have been known to tell tales of ghost sightings, most commonly in the form of a woman believed to be Mary, as well as the shadow of a man.
Baxter said she and a friend saw a ghostly figure one day while eating lunch at the Edgewater.
"While we ordered food and drinks, I saw a figure go past the mirror on the back wall. I didn't really think about it much, I'm not even sure I mentioned it out loud until we started talking to the owner," Baxter said.
"She told us there used to be an old doorway to the kitchen on one side of the mirror, and that some patrons had reported seeing a figure of a man come from the old door (now a wall) and walk to the patio door on the other side of the mirror. Right where I thought I saw the same thing!"
Now, this history is for sale to "anyone and everyone," Sardegna said.
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