Blackstone Hotel
- Architect
- Marshall & Fox
- Year
- 1910
- Style
- Beaux-Arts
- City
- Chicago, IL
The Blackstone Hotel is a 21-story, 290-foot hotel at Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive, built between 1908 and 1910 by brothers John and Tracy Drake, sons of hotel magnate John Drake, on the former site of railroad millionaire Timothy Blackstone's mansion. Designed by Marshall & Fox in the Second Empire and Beaux-Arts styles, it opened April 6, 1910, and became known as the 'Hotel of Presidents' for hosting a long line of U.S. presidents and other celebrity guests.
the building
Hotel of Presidents. Numerous U.S. presidents stayed here through much of the 20th century, a run of famous guests that earned the Blackstone its nickname and gave American politics the phrase 'smoke-filled room,' coined to describe backroom dealmaking inside the hotel.
Built by the Drake family. Brothers John and Tracy Drake developed the hotel on land once occupied by the mansion of railroad millionaire Timothy Blackstone, their father's former business partner; the Drakes went on to build the equally prominent Drake Hotel.
the style
Marshall & Fox designed the Blackstone in the Second Empire and Beaux-Arts idioms, styles meant to project old-money grandeur at the edge of the Chicago Theatre District, on a site once occupied by Timothy Blackstone's own mansion.
More on Beaux-Artssignificance
The Blackstone is a designated Chicago Landmark (L-18) and a National Register of Historic Places listing, added April 29, 1998, and is a contributing building in the Michigan Boulevard Historic District.
nearby
- Johnson Publishing Company Building
- Auditorium Building
- Lakeside Press Building
- Crane Company Building
- Dearborn Station
- Fine Arts Building