EDGEWATER BEACH HOTEL

It was called the Edgewater Beach Hotel: a lavish, popular resort offering every amenity and, in its heyday, attracting the biggest stars – Babe Ruth, Nat King Cole, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis – and more than one president of the United States.

Opened in 1916, the hotel was enormously popular from the 1920s through the 1940s. And while the hotel’s appeal had faded a bit by 1950, what really sounded its death knell was concrete.

In the early 1950s, Lake Shore Drive was extended north from Foster Avenue to Hollywood Avenue. Road engineers hastened the demise of the hotel when they separated the hotel from its namesake beach with a lot of landfill and pavement.

The hotel was bankrupt by 1967 and was demolished in 1971. All that remains is The Edgewater Beach Apartments, constructed in 1928 as part of the original hotel complex. That pretty pink building still stands at the north end of Lake Shore Drive and hints at the glory that was the Edgewater Beach Hotel.

Architect Benjamin Marshall’s dramatic pink stucco Spanish Baroque design, in an unusual Maltese cross layout, was a striking presence on the Chicago lakeshore.Photo Credit: Chicago History Museum

The elegant dining room, which seated 1,200, had a strict dress code. You might run into such stars as Bette Davis, Babe Ruth, Tallulah Bankhead, or Nat King Cole here. Photo Credit: Chicago History Museum

A vintage postcard points out amenities, including the 1,000-foot beachfront “esplanade.” Unfortunately, Chicago planners were looking at that area with expansion plans in mind. Photo Credit: Chicago History Museum

Looking from Lake Shore Drive toward the north, when the Drive ended at Foster Avenue, the Edgewater Beach Hotel truly was at the water’s edge. Photo Credit: Chicago Park District

In the early 1950s, a major landfill project separated the Edgewater Beach Hotel from Lake Michigan, effectively turning a beachfront resort into an inland hotel. Photo Credit: Chicago History Museum

When the project was completed, the Edgewater Beach Hotel’s guests had to walk under the highway to get to the beach. The hotel was bankrupt by 1967 and was demolished in 1971. Photo Credit: Chicago Park District