Drake Hotel (Chicago)
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Drake Hotel
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Newly opened Drake Hotel in a 1920 picture postcard
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| Location | 140 E. Walton Pl Chicago, Illinois |
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| Coordinates | 41°54′1.67″N 87°37′27.3″W / 41.9004639°N 87.624250°WCoordinates: 41°54′1.67″N 87°37′27.3″W / 41.9004639°N 87.624250°W |
| Built | 1920 |
| Architect | Marshall,Benjamin; Fox, Charles Eli |
| Architectural style | Other |
| NRHP Reference # | 80001345 |
| Added to NRHP | May 8, 1980 |
The Drake Hotel, 140 East Walton Place,Chicago, Illinois, is a luxury, full-service hotel, located downtown on the lake side of Michigan Avenue two blocks north of the John Hancock Center and a block south of Oak Street Beach at the top of the Magnificent Mile. Overlooking Lake Michigan, it was founded in 1920, designed in the Italian Renaissance style by the firm of Marshall and Fox, and soon became one of Chicago's landmark hotels, a longtime rival of the Palmer House. It has 537 bedrooms and 74 suites, a six-room Presidential Suite, several restaurants, two large ballrooms, the "Palm Court" (a club-like, secluded lobby), and Club International (a members-only club introduced in the 1940s). It is known for the contribution that its silhouette and sign on the lake (Oak Street) façade make to the Gold Coast skyline.
Second-generation hotel magnates Tracy Drake and John Drake (1872-1964) acquired the property from the estate of Potter Palmer in 1916. The building was financed by a syndicate of family friends including members of the Palmer, Armour, Swift, and McCormick families and the hotel's architects, Benjamin Marshall and Charles Fox. Including the land, construction, and furnishing, the Drake cost $10,000,000, which in present-day dollars is roughly $120 million.
At the time of its completion, the Drake provided a transition between the fashionable Gold Coast residential area and the new commercial north Michigan Avenue. The building's Walton Place main entrance avoided the commotion of the commercial thoroughfare and increased vehicular access. The Drake brothers upheld the family reputation as a main focus of social, commercial, and political life in Chicago with its ownership and management of the city's two most prominent hotels as Michigan Avenue bookends. (See Blackstone Hotel.)
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