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dreamsharkLots of hotels like to tack "Historic" onto the front of their names, but there's no disputing that this one has earned the moniker.It was built in 1871 by Potter Palmer, one of those larger-than-life Gilded Age tycoons that didn't do anything halfway. Potter built the hotel as a wedding gift for his bride Bertha (a pretty remarkable character in her own right). Not wanting his gift to seem chintzy, he made it the biggest hotel in the world. It opened on Sept 26, 1871. 13 days later it burned down in the Great Chicago Fire. That's the 19th century for you.
Undeterred, Palmer took out the largest individual loan that had ever been secured and rebuilt it, even bigger and grander than before, with part of the floor paved in silver dollars. Bertha had a wonderful time decorating it in typical restrained Gilded Age style, and everybody from Ulysses S. Grant to Oscar Wilde stayed there. In the 1920's, the Palmers having amassed even more money than they had before, they expanded and gradually rebuilt the entire thing. This time they hired a French muralist to make the lobby look like a rococo 18th-century French palace.
The hotel has had its ups and downs since, and is no longer the biggest or most expensive hotel in Chicago, but still expensive enough that the only way we could afford to stay here was free nights from Hilton credit cards. The rooms are not as jaw-dropping as the lobby, but we scored a really nice Accessible King on the 21st floor.
The view was spectacular, and the windows even opened (one advantage of an older hotel). The furnishings were not exactly period, but they went for dignified colors and traditional designs (DRAWERS instead of featureless cubes!). The hallways and elevator lobbies went for the art nouveau look, oddly punctuated by cushioned seats that look like an old Cray supercomputer dipped in velour.
But the best thing about the hotel was the location. More about that in the next installment.
Undeterred, Palmer took out the largest individual loan that had ever been secured and rebuilt it, even bigger and grander than before, with part of the floor paved in silver dollars. Bertha had a wonderful time decorating it in typical restrained Gilded Age style, and everybody from Ulysses S. Grant to Oscar Wilde stayed there. In the 1920's, the Palmers having amassed even more money than they had before, they expanded and gradually rebuilt the entire thing. This time they hired a French muralist to make the lobby look like a rococo 18th-century French palace.
The hotel has had its ups and downs since, and is no longer the biggest or most expensive hotel in Chicago, but still expensive enough that the only way we could afford to stay here was free nights from Hilton credit cards. The rooms are not as jaw-dropping as the lobby, but we scored a really nice Accessible King on the 21st floor.
The view was spectacular, and the windows even opened (one advantage of an older hotel). The furnishings were not exactly period, but they went for dignified colors and traditional designs (DRAWERS instead of featureless cubes!). The hallways and elevator lobbies went for the art nouveau look, oddly punctuated by cushioned seats that look like an old Cray supercomputer dipped in velour.
But the best thing about the hotel was the location. More about that in the next installment.
