Former WBBM-Ch. 2 reporter Pam Zekman sells Uptown home for $1.5M

Former WBBM-Ch. 2 investigative reporter Pam Zekman on Oct. 21 sold her six-bedroom, Prairie-style house in Uptown’s Buena Park area for $1.5 million.

Zekman was a star investigative reporter who was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning Tribune investigations in the 1970s before joining the Chicago Sun-Times and working as a critical part of that paper’s famed undercover Mirage Tavern series, which resulted in the firings of city workers, indictments and the reform of several agencies. CBS 2 hired Zekman in 1981, and she led investigation after investigation there until leaving the station in 2020.

In Buena Park, Zekman and her then-husband, former Tribune columnist Rick Soll, bought the house in the mid-1980s. Soll died in 2016.

Built in 1910, the house has 4 ½ bathrooms, three gas fireplaces, an updated front porch, a foyer and a living room with a custom wood chimney encasing and a marble hearth and mantel. It also has five outdoor areas, a kitchen with Miele and Thermador appliances, an office with custom built-in shelving, a third floor with a recreation room and a kitchen and a basement that has a caretaker’s apartment with a kitchen and a private entrance.

Listing agent Wade Marshall of Engel & Voelkers Chicago, who also represented the buyers, told Elite Street that Zekman had made considerable upgrades to the home over the years.

“She did a lot of really, really nice additions to the house,” Marshall said. “In particular, she added a front porch that you can see in pictures, and then kind of matching that was the screened porch on the other side of the front door. And then what also was nicely done were the back pavers in the back yard and the built-in grill. All that space was very nicely done, and she also added heated pavers on the stairs up to the front porch and the pavers of the driveway also were heated. So there were a lot of really good, smart additions to make the house just a pleasure to sell.”

Zekman, who now has moved to a Near North Side retirement community, first listed the house on May 7 for $2.1 million, and she reduced her asking price later that month to $1.89 million.

Records show that the buyer is an executive with a global telecommunications company.

The house had a $15,883 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

Originally Published: October 28, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.