Drake Hotel (Chicago)
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The Drake Hotel, 140 East Walton Place, Chicago, Illinois, is a luxury full-service hotel, located downtown on the lake side of Michigan Avenue 2 blocks north of the John Hancock Center.
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[edit] History
The Drake is one of just two United States hotels owned by Hilton International (which owns the Hilton brand outside the United States). Overlooking Lake Michigan, it was founded in 1920 in the Italian Renaissance style 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 and the "Palm Court", a club-like secluded lobby.
Tourists visiting Chicago are often invited to have high tea at the Drake as an essential thing to do in the city. It includes several in-house luxury shops.
All the corridors and guest rooms were renovated in a $45 million five-year project from 1998 to 2003. A further $15 million is being spent in 2005 and 2006 to add a fitness center, an executive conference center, and new luxury bedding and desks in all the guest rooms.
The Drake served as the original studios of radio station WGN when it was renamed from WDAP in 1924.
William Drake and his wife Elizabeth lived at the hotel for several years until the family lost the hotel during the Great Depression.
[edit] Notable Visitors
The Drake has been frequented by many heads of state, assorted celebrities, international personalities and members of the European aristocracy, some as long-term residents. Notable guests have included Winston Churchill, Prince Charles and Princess Diana (albeit 19 years apart), Elizabeth Taylor, the Marchese and Marchesa Chiaramonte-Ragusa, Prince Felix Yusupov, and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko as well as the anglo-german techno-rock band Scooter.
[edit] Urban Legends
According to local legend Drake was standing with a hotel owner watching the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The owner seeing his hotel threatened by the flames offered to sell it for any price. Drake noticed that the wind direction was changing and made an offer and so founded the Drake Hotel. This urban legend cannot be true because it occurs 49 years before the hotel's founding.
[edit] Trivia
- Scenes from the movies Mission: Impossible, Risky Business, My Best Friend's Wedding, Hero, What Women Want, Continental Divide, Flags of Our Fathers, and Wicker Park, were filmed at the hotel.
- Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe carved their initials into the wooden bar of the Cape Cod Room.
- Princess Diana stayed at the Drake Hotel during her only visit to Chicago in 1996, one year before her death.
