Local Elmhurst Resident Goriana Alexander … Doing Well and Doing Good!!

Things are going well for Goriana Alexander, a successful real estate developer who lives in Elmhurst with her hubby and two small children. But things were not always wonderful … which is why Goriana believes that one can do Well and also do Good! Goriana regularly welcomes friends suffering hardships into her home - - and underwrites charity events in her luxurious nightly rental properties. One recent event featured the incomparable Bill Kurtis interviewing Fr. Michael Garanzini, former President of Loyola University, who now serves as Chancellor of the university, as well as the Secretary for Higher Education for the Society of Jesus (which means he oversees all of the Jesuit colleges and universities around the world).

Goriana Alexander was thrilled to host a group of more than fifty movers and shakers on her property to herald the tireless work done by Jorie Butler and daughter Reute, founders of Friends of Conservation, a not for profit organization which works in Africa with the Maasai Mara communities to find ways to interact with wildlife and to assist in finding methods for managing natural resources; the charity organization runs community programs on conservation education, which reach 50 Mara schools. The Butler Family also founded Oak Brook, in which there is a boulevard named after Jorie!

Here's more about our impressive local resident, Goriana Alexander:

Goriana Alexander has been in the real estate business for 15 years … she has participated in a variety of commercial sales and leasing in various cities. She is also a real estate developer and is currently working on over $60 million in real estate developments in Texas, which include medical office buildings and assisted living facilities. She is a licensed broker in Illinois, Indiana, Oklahoma, and New York. She is a principal in real estate construction firm Chicago Historic Renovation, a licensed general contractor, and an avid lover of interior design.

A self-admitted workaholic, Goriana has been working since age 14. Having lost her mom at 14 to breast cancer and her dad at 19 to lung cancer, Gori's early years were spent taking care of her sister and working hard. She graduated with honors from the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

But it is advice from her dad "Never cry and Never give up" that continually inspires her - that and the blood in her veins from her famous ancestors in Mostar and Sarajevo. Her famous relatives include noted and admired journalists, and singer/song writer/ poet Aleksa Santic whose legacy earned him a statue in his likeness in Mostar. Goriana's father immigrated over from Africa on a boat after having served two years for the British Army during WWII. Upon his arrival in the United States, he worked as a janitor until he finally was able to obtain his undergraduate degree at Michigan State University, after which he graduated University of Michigan as a dental surgeon. It is to these impressive stories of her family members that Goriana looks to get her through her own tough times.

Because of her familial roots, when Goriana realized that lodging options when traveling fell short of what her family needed, Goriana decided to not only notice the problem, but find the solution as well. "My husband and I have two small children, but we love to travel. We've found such travel problematic though, because my children both had allergies and I needed to make specific formula and specific food for my children. Many hotels have done away with the mini refrigerators, and didn't provide access to convenient hot water and kitchen space for meal preparation. What I needed, was to be able to live a normal life even when away from the comforts of my own home." Goriana realized that the next big, new market in Chicago was in luxury short term rental properties, because "people want to stay as a family, to live with the comforts of home … and this is not always easy in a hotel" … a fact Goriana knew from personal experience

An avid researcher, Goriana realized that the successes of Airbnb and VRBO were part of a trend sweeping the nation. She knew that people like her are in need of an alternative to hotel rooms - a thing to which she could personally relate - and she saw the need in the market place, which was a concept especially attractive to people from Europe who want to live comfortably and cook their own food and spend time with family in group environments.

So Goriana spent multiple millions of dollars buying up three near north properties, and another $1.5 million to make them luxurious! "My goal is to fill a need in the marketplace by providing luxurious properties, taking properties that have been on the market for years and renovating them inside and out, keeping the vintage beauty while adding a modern flair." As far as we can determine, Goriana and her business partner are the only local real estate developers buying and rehabbing properties and turning them into Luxury Short Term Rental Properties.