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    Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago
    Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago
    Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago
    Ebook208 pages1 hour

    Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago

    By Robert V. Allegrini

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Architecturally imposing, historically rich, and socially important, Chicago s magnificent grand hotels have fascinated generations of Chicagoans and have pleased generations of guests. The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago have come to represent a collective formal living room for Chicago, where the city s most important visitors are accommodated, entertained, and made aware of the grandeur and sophistication of their host s hometown. They were built to inspire awe and still do for anyone fortunate enough to find themselves in the lobby of The Palmer House Hilton, The Palm Court of The Drake, or the Grand Ballroom of The Hilton Chicago.
    Many of the most famous locales in these classic structures have been transformed or have disappeared altogether due to changing times. Gone, for example, is The Hilton Chicago s famous rooftop miniature golf course and Boulevard Room supper club, complete with its ice shows. Gone, too, is The Drake s legendary supper club, the Camellia House. While the Empire Room of The Palmer House Hilton continues to exist as an function room, it no longer reverberates with the sound of Liberace s piano or Jimmy Durante s vocals, as it did when it was the city s premier entertainment facility. Chicago s Grand Hotels chronicles over 100 years of Chicago hotel history through vivid photographs and memorabilia from the archives of The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago. It tells the compelling story of the visionary architects and hoteliers who brought these hotels to life and made them structural testaments to the warmth of midwestern hospitality.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 9, 2005
    ISBN9781439616598
    Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago

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      Book preview

      Chicago's Grand Hotels - Robert V. Allegrini

      Stevens.

      INTRODUCTION

      The grand hotel is truly a magical venue. It is a center of glamour, intrigue, and excitement, a place of romance and fascination. A place where all the ordinary rules of life are suspended a little bit, a place of indulgence.

      Yet not just any large hotel can be classified as grand. Most aficionados would agree that to earn the grand designation a hotel must possess an enticing combination of imposing and majestic architecture; rich, classical furnishings; unique function space; venerable dining establishments; and a legacy of both worldly and sophisticated hoteliers, as well as famous—and sometimes infamous—guests. Above all, a true grand hotel must possess a noteworthy history. It must be synonymous with the city where it is located.

      Despite the many appealing characteristics of grand hotels, the forces of modern economics, changing tastes, and the march of time have all contributed to relegating these impressive edifices to the structural equivalent of the endangered species list.

      Thankfully, Chicago has acted as a resilient refuge for these rare gems, and the city can boast three grand hotels that continue to flourish in the 21st century. The names of these hotels resonate with Chicagoans and discerning visitors of all ages: The Palmer House, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago (which formerly bore the proud names of The Stevens and subsequently The Conrad Hilton). In the crowded pantheon of Chicago hotels, these three properties reign supreme not only because they have withstood the test of time but because so much of the most noteworthy and memorable social, cultural, and political history of the city has unfolded within their walls. Even the walls themselves have made history for significant architectural and technological milestones are associated with the construction of each of these hotels. The second of the three Palmer Houses, for example, was the world’s first completely fire proof hotel and was the first hotel to use electric light bulbs, to use an elevator, and to employ telephones in every room, and The Stevens, when opened, was simply the largest hotel in the world.

      Big, brawny, and self-confident, The Palmer House, The Drake, and The Stevens reflected the city where they were built, and the era when they were born. As a convergence point of the railroads that crisscrossed the nation, Chicago in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a natural meeting place, and these three hotels emerged to accommodate the thousands of travelers who came to the city for business or social gatherings. The Drake, by virtue of its location on the shores of Lake Michigan, had the added advantage of attracting leisure travelers since it was positioned as one of America’s first urban resorts. Today, few guests still arrive at The Palmer House, The Drake, or The Hilton Chicago by train. Though the modes of transportation have changed, the desirability of lodging at these hotels remains as strong as it did in the early decades of the last century. While sleeker more minimalist hotels that are often devoid of character or personality now dominate the urban landscape, The Palmer House, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago continue to constitute enduring beacons for that cadre of cultured individuals who appreciate the finer things in life; who retain a sense of elegance; and who possess a desire to patronize a hotel where they can be a part of a tradition of gracious hospitality. The allure of Chicago’s grand hotels continues and this is their story.

      Potter Palmer was the builder and owner of The Palmer House and one of the true city fathers of Chicago. Beyond his legacy of the hotel that bares his name, Palmer was also responsible for beginning the dry goods store that eventually became Marshall Fields, as well as for literally making State Street that great street by buying nearly a mile of State Street real estate, having the thoroughfare widened by 27 feet, and literally turning the axis of mid town Chicago from east-west along a dingy Lake Street, to a more gracious north-south axis along State Street.

      Bertha Honore Palmer was the great-granddaughter of Jean Antoine Honore, who had followed Lafayette to America. After her marriage to Potter Palmer she left several distinct legacies of her own to Chicago and the world. She was a pioneering champion of women’s rights as well as a great patron of the arts. She amassed the greatest collection of impressionist art outside of France (over 220 paintings including numerous Monets and Renoirs) and willed them to the Art Institute of Chicago. To the delight of sweets’ lovers everywhere, Bertha Palmer also earned a position in the annals of American culinary history through the creation of the brownie, which was first made in the kitchen of The Palmer House hotel to fulfill her request for a compact dessert that could be served at The Woman’s Pavilion of the World’s Columbian exhibition of 1892.

      ONE

      THE FIRST AND SECOND PALMER HOUSES

      One is compelled to begin any history of The Palmer House by examining the colorful and larger than life figures of Potter and Bertha Palmer, the couple who gave their name to the hotels that they built and owned, and as such, earned an indelible place in the annals of Chicago history.

      Potter Palmer was a dry goods merchant born in Potter’s Hollow, New York, in 1826 who became intrigued with the business opportunities that the young city of Chicago offered and opened a dry goods store there in 1852 that eventually became the famed Marshall Field’s department store. He became instantly famous for his here-to-fore unheard of business practices of allowing the return of goods for refund or exchange and offering bargain sales. With the considerable funds that he earned in the dry goods business he began speculating in Chicago real estate, and by the 1860s, he owned three-quarters of a mile of State Street in what is now the Loop.

      Bertha Honore Palmer was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1849. She was the daughter of leading local businessman, Henry Honore, who later moved to Chicago with Bertha when she was six. She was 13 when she first met Potter Palmer, who was instantly taken with the beautiful young girl who was 23 years his junior. Potter patiently waited as Bertha continued her education. But when she turned 21, he could wait no longer, and they were married in the summer of 1871.

      Potter Palmer planned to present the 225-room hotel he had just built as a wedding present to Bertha. But tragically, only 13

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