4601 North Sheridan Road
Built 1920
Architect: Walter W. Ahlschlager
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Somerset Hotel, ca. 1920 |
Built in 1919, the Sheridan Plaza Hotel was one of Uptown's first full-service, upscale apartment hotels. Located on the northeast corner of North Sheridan Road and West Wilson Avenue, the Sheridan Plaza occupied one of the most valuable parcels of land outside the Loop at the time of its opening. In 1925, a real estate appraiser placed the value of the Sheridan Plaza land at $6000 per front foot. Among non-Loop properties, only those surrounding the nearby Broadway-Wilson intersection and Englewood's 63rd-Halsted intersection equalled or surpassed this figure.
The twelve-story hotel was at the time of its opening the tallest structures in Uptown. Built at a cost of $2 million, it was also one of the district's costliest. The hotel was designed by architect Walter W. Ahlschlager, whose other Chicago projects included the Sovereign apartment hotel on Granville Avenue, and the Pantheon, Belmont, Davis, and Senate Theaters.
The Sheridan Plaza formally opened for business in April 1920. Early advertisements touted the hotel's convenient location and expert staff. Express motor coaches to the Loop ran along both Wilson Avenue and Sheridan Road, and the elevated and Milwaukee Road interurban trains stopped two blocks west of the hotel. Many of the Sheridan Plaza's leading staff members had prior experience working at some of the world's finest hotels. George F. Adams, the hotel's first manager, came to the Sheridan Plaza from the prestigious Greenbrier resort in White Sulpfur Springs, West Virginia. The hotel's steward and chef de cuisine had worked previously at the Grand and Sacher Hotels in Vienna, Austria. And the maitre d'hotel had experience at Paris' Hotel Balmoral and New York City's Astor Hotel.
Besides convenient transportation options and an expert staff, the Sheridan Plaza also offered its guests a generous array of deluxe amenities and first-class services. Guests received complementary laundry and cleaning services, storage space for valuables, package reception and delivery service, and free telephone service, including message reception. Guests also had access to the hotel's lobby, ballroom, and other public rooms free of charge. The expense for these services was included in the price of a room. Guests could rent a room by the day, the week, or the month. Rents in 1920 ranged from $100 to $130 per month, or roughly $1070 to $1600 in 2005 dollars.
The Sheridan Plaza Restaurant on the second floor accommodated the dining needs of guests. "In our main dining room," one early advertisement read, "the prices will be very reasonable and meals will be ready at any time you desire. Here you can entertain your friends at a moment's notice, without thought as to whether enough has been provided or whether it will suit." There was also a less-expensive, self-serve eatery within the hotel called the Narcissus Grill. Supper dances featuing the Sheridan Plaza Orchestra were held Saturday evenings at nine o'clock. [Trib, 3 Apr 1921, G4; 1 May 1921, F1]
Most of the hotel's early residents were ________________________.
During its early years, the Sheridan Plaza occupied an important place in the social life of the Uptown community. Local business associations held luncheons and meetings at the hotel. Over the years, hundreds of weddings and banquets were held in the hotel's ballroom. During the 1940s, the Sheridan Plaza was also the home residential headquarters of the Chicago Cubs baseball club, as well as many visiting National League baseball teams.
"The Sheridan Plaza will occupy a real place in the social life of Chicago—a splendidly equipped modern hotel with a distinctive atmosphere of the old world aristocrat. It is the aim of the management to interest only people who appreciate this environment of quiet dignity and refinement——the unobtrusive service, genuine hospitality and unexcelled cuisine of the old South." [Trib, 6 March 1921, F1]
1950s... remained a lively hotel and night spot, with the hotel's Golden Lion Inn restaurant and nightclub [Trib, 3 Aug 1958, E8]...
1957... August... hotel purchased by a group headed by Louis A. Sherman, attorney and real estate developer, from the Sheridan Plaza Hotel Corporation for $1 million... [Trib, 20 Aug 1957, B7]
1968... In February 1968, a fire broke out on the second floor ballroom being used as a storage room during a hotel remodeling project, damaged much of the second floor and caused water and smoke damage on many additional floors... a residence for elderly... 200 residents forced to flee, many of them elderly... [Trib, 20 Feb 1968, 1]...
1969... in late 1968, Advanced Training Institute, Inc. purchased the hotel for $1.5 million and subsequently announced plans to invest $2 million on remodeling of the hotel and conversion of its second, third and fourth floors into a business college, including a training school for restaurant employees and builing maintenance employees... ended daily rentals... designed to provide low-cost housing for senior citizens and other persons of low or fixed incomes... [Trib, 2 Jan 1969, N1]...
1974... closure of the hotel... no new leases accepted and remaining tenants told they would have to move out by the first of December... "derelict building housing the silent and lonely"... two fires hastened the eviction process... one 70-year-old resident complained: "When I moved in 12 years ago it was a nice place. Now it's just a dump. They never kept it up. They never did anything for us. There were rooms filled with trash... anybody could get in, through the fire escapes, it's no problem. Last week they just yanked out the switchboard and nobody knew why. Nobody even knows who owns the place." [18 Nov 1974, 3]... series of suspicious fires broke out in various parts of the hotel during the month of November... two elderly residents died in a fire on the 17th... ownership of the hotel had fallen into the hands of a court-appointed receiver... [19 Nov 1974, A1]... all but abandoned and demolition seemed imminent... sat abandoned until 1978, when the Egidi Group, a Des Plaines-based redevelopment group, purchased the old hotel for $1.1... obtained landmark status for the hotel, qualifying it for federal tax breaks, as well as a $8.5 million low-interest federal mortgage loan to help finance a $12 million restoration of the building... [Trib, 11 June 1983, B1]
The Sheridan Plaza was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
1983... underwent complete renovation... former 415-room hotel converted into a 140-unit apartment building... brick and terra cotta exterior completely restored, restoration of the barrel-vaulted lobby, with its plaster decorations and marble staircase... [Trib, 24 Apr 1983, N-B2A]...
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Sources: Chicago Daily Tribune, 13 June 1920, F10; 15 Aug 1920, F7; 2 Oct 1924, 30; 13 Dec 1932, 14; 28 Sep 1969, sec. 10, pg. 7; 21 May 1972, sec. 10, pg. 4; 23 May 1972, sec. 3, pg. 14; Chicago Sunday Tribune, 31 Aug 1919, pt. 2, pg. 7; 28 Aug 1921, pt. 1, pg. 6; 31 May 1936, pt. 8, pg. 3; 2 Jan 1938, pt. 8, pg. 6; 4 June 1939, pt. 8, pg. 2; Uptown News, 9 June 1931, 4; Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Illinois e.d. 16-1790.
Illustration: "Somerset Hotel, Chicago, Ill.," postcard (n.p., n.d.), cropped; "Uptown Theatre for the Balaban & Katz Corporation, Chicago," photograph in The Recent Work of C.W. & Geo. L. Rapp, Architects (Chicago: n.p., 1927), 30.
Page authored: 22 June 2005
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