Ladies' Night in the Penthouse

Last night, the ladies of CREW toured the newly renovated 3,400 SF penthouse at the Palmer House Hilton. Behind this longest continuously operating hotel in North America, there's another great woman : Bertha Honore Palmer, whose husband, Potter, opened the hotel as a wedding gift to her. (And for the first anniversary present? We don't know, but it had to be a letdown.)
 

We snapped Palmer House's Ken Price  in the penthouse, near Bertha's picture, answering queries from Mauge's Ginna Ryan. The four-bedroom suite has played host to the Clintons and the Dalai Lama. The architect for the $177 million hotel renovation was Loebl, Schlossman & Hackl, and owner Thor Properties is largely women-operated. Designers tried to keep the original owners intent in mind when renovating the space. History lesson: Bertha's influence extended beyond the hotel to the women's pavillion of the Columbian Exposition in 1894, where she introduced then-radical ideas like suffrage and birth control.

 

The ladies of CREW stopped in for drinks at Potter's, the hotel's bar. The walls behind Builders Bank's Joyce Judah and Dorothy Carr and Keybank Real Estate Capital's Jane Blomquist  depict some of the major acts that have played the hotel's Empire Room. (Carol Channing was the most common headliner.) Jane won the Spa Chakra raffle, so she'll be back!


Continue reading this story with a free account

Log in or register
Sign up for more articles like this
Subscribe to Bisnow's Chicago Newsletters
Related Stories

From Pandemic Darling To Cautionary Tale: Pickleball Clubs Face A Reckoning After Betting Big On Retail Space

Morningstar Releases New Details On Over 350K SF In Q3 Office Leases

New Bears Stadium Proposal Floated For Bridgeport

Prologis To Develop 3.8M SF Industrial Park On Former Casino Site

Foundry Robotics Leaves San Francisco For New East Bay HQ

Tenant Rep Firm Expands To Philly, Hires Industry Veteran

$120M Ambulatory Center Planned For Suburbs: The Chicago Deal Sheet

Data Centers Lose The Top Spot, San Francisco Jumps 40 Places: 9 Takeaways From ULI's 2027 Outlook

Obama Center Shows Chicago Is Starved For Development

Mapped: Major Chicago Office Sales Since 2024

Cushman & Wakefield, NYC Added To Suit Alleging $250K Agency Lease Shakedown

Denver Public Schools' $11M Centennial Hall Purchase Marks Rare Land Sale For ULC