Shoreland Hotel
- Architect
- Meyer Fridstein
- Year
- 1925
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- Chicago, IL
The Shoreland opened in 1926 in Hyde Park, designed by Meyer Fridstein in the Renaissance Revival style for hotelier Harry Fawcett, who spent $2 million on furnishings alone. Its 1,000 guest rooms across 13 floors, crystal ballroom, and 30-foot-high lobby made it a magnet for Chicago's elite before decades as a University of Chicago residence hall and, since 2013, apartments.
the building
The lobby and ballroom. Fawcett spared no expense on the interiors: a lobby with 30-foot-high ceilings, a crystal ballroom, and a banquet hall with its own top-tier restaurant, all wrapped in a terra-cotta exterior carved with gargoyles and elaborate stonework.
A guest list of legends. The Shoreland hosted a banquet for Amelia Earhart on her triumphant 1928 return to the Hyde Park neighborhood where she went to high school. Al Capone was known to conduct business in certain rooms, and in the 1950s Jimmy Hoffa kept a room here for raucous union meetings.
the style
The building's Renaissance Revival design is most visible in its ornamented terra-cotta exterior, carried out with gargoyles and elaborate stonework more typical of a European palazzo than a South Side hotel.
More on Renaissance Revivalsignificance
The Shoreland was designated a Chicago Landmark (L-291) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with city landmark status confirmed on September 8, 2010. It later served as a University of Chicago dormitory before its 2013 conversion into apartments.
nearby
- Jackson Shore Apartments
- Promontory Apartments
- Museum of Science and Industry
- Woman's Building
- University Apartments
- St. Thomas Church and Convent