Shoreland Hotel

Address: 5454 S. South Shore Dr. Year Built: 1925 - 1926 Architect: Meyer Fridstein Date Designated a Chicago Landmark: September 8, 2010

The Shoreland Hotel, located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, was one of the city's most prominent apartment hotels in the 1920s and 30s. Apartment hotels could be tailored to accommodate working, middle and upper-class residents and emerged as a new building type in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The hotel is a reflection of the rapid growth of the city during the 1920s, when skyrocketing land values, advancing building technologies and shifting tastes made apartment hotels a popular housing choice. The thirteen-story building was designed by engineer Meyer Fridstein with Spanish Renaissance Revival style detailing. The building retains significant interiors, including a high-ceilinged entrance lobby, remodeled in the Art Deco style in the late 1930s, and a second-floor ballroom. During the fifty years that it served as a luxury apartment hotel, the Shoreland hosted such famous individuals as Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Capone, Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis Presley.