Palmer House
17 E. Monroe Street
Chicago, IL 60603
Age obviously didn’t matter to Bertha, who had married a man twenty-three years her senior. And what would the richest man in Chicago give his young bride as a wedding present? If you were Potter, you’d give her a hotel with your name on it.
Renée Rosen’s What the Lady Wants
Ned released the thick tassels on the dark green rep curtains, which he had been fingering as if his life depended on it, and wheeled suddenly to face the room. As he did so he caught an instant vision of what was before him, as though it were a scene in one of the plays he’d been seeing all week: the square, sombre private parlour at the Palmer House, with its heavily carved walnut “suite,” and the liver-brown marble mantel draped in a fringed green plush lambrequin, above which hung a coloured reproduction of “The Horse Fair” by Rose Bonheur. A monumental bouquet of proud red roses stood on the round centre table next a box of candy from Gunther’s: these were his father’s contributions to the family comfort—as the sewing basket and litter of novels and magazines were his mother’s—and were as invariable as the splendid gardenia in Mr. Ramsay’s buttonhole, the mingled odour of expensive tobacco and Florida Water that heralded his presence.
Arthur Meeker, Jr.’s Prairie Avenue
The Palmer House is in its third iteration. The first Palmer House, which opened just 13 days before the Great Chicago Fire, was destroyed. It was rebuilt in about two years, reopening as “The World’s Only Fire Proof Hotel.” The second Palmer House lasted about a half-century (from 1873 until 1923), when Chicago’s booming local and tourist populations, as well as a robust economy, led to expansion from seven stories into the 25-story structure that stands today. The Palmer House remained open while its third version was being built—the hotel was cut in half, with one half continuing to function in a more limited capacity while the new (grander, larger) building was being constructed. When the new first half opened for business, the original half was torn down to continue the new construction. Upon completion, The Palmer House boasted 2,268 rooms, making it, at least for a short time, the world’s largest hotel. Thus, the Palmer House has managed to continue, with major and minor interruptions, in the same location for 155 years.
Potter Palmer built the first hotel as a gift to his bride, Bertha—she was 21 then, and he was a millionaire more than twice her age. The extravagance of that gesture foreshadowed the hotel’s reputation as one of the finest, fanciest of its kind, and also in keeping with the opulence of Chicago’s Gilded Age. Potter Palmer, the son of a simple cloth tradesman from Albany, New York, had risen into the upper echelon of Chicago’s business and monied class. He was among an elite group of business people who helped transform Chicago from its swampland roots into one of the world’s greatest cities. Palmer bought three-quarters of a mile of State Street land to realize his vision of making it the city’s primary retail district (which it was, for a while).
The Gilded Age, in literature, is often presented in contrast to Chicago’s working-class foundation—the stockyards, the steel mills, the vice districts, the factories. Many Chicago authors, in a continuous line from then until now, have told gritty stories based on this contrasting reality of abject poverty and unimaginable wealth, and the struggles in between. The inequities of society interested readers and writers during this time. But Potter Palmer, as well as his contemporaries like Marshall Field, George Pullman and Samuel Nickerson, were the visionaries of downtown Chicago, and their vision was of grandeur.
There’s a fine line between obscene wealth and taste, and it was Bertha who attempted to straddle it. After making friends with Claude Monet, Bertha started collecting artwork and having some of it installed as part of the Palmer House décor—eventually, she amassed the largest collection of Impressionist art outside of France. Bertha’s vision and leadership resulted in The Palmer House being adorned with garnet-draped chandeliers, Louis Comfort Tiffany masterpieces, Impressionist paintings, and a Louis Pierre Rigal ceiling fresco described by columnist George Will as “a wonderful protest of romance against the everydayness of life.” That fresco in the Great Hall consists of 21 individual paintings depicting scenes from Greek and Roman mythology, including a nine-panel set of Muses that include several (Calliope, Erato, and Polyhymnia) related to poetry.
Naturally, Potter and Bertha Palmer eventually became the subjects of historical and biographical books. They also became characters in many fictional accounts of this celebrated period of Chicago history. The hotel itself attracted thousands of notable guests, including Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, and Oscar Wilde.
A glass display case in the east lobby displays the 24-karat gold-trimmed French Haviland bone china that was initially purchased for a November 13, 1879 banquet in honor of President Ulysses S. Grant’s return from an around-the-world trip. Eighteen pieces constitute a formal place setting, and Bertha brought back 500 pieces from a French trip. Bertha’s sister, Ida, was married to Brigadier General Frederick Dent Grant, Ulysses’s son. Mark Twain, a friend of the Palmers, served as master of ceremonies. It was then that Twain delivered his famous “The Babies” speech, the final toast of the evening. This speech was published in newspapers and magazines at the time and gained greater notoriety when Albert Bigelow Paine published an edited version of Twain’s Autobiography (Twain mandated that the full—quite lengthy—autobiography not be published until 100 years after his death). He wrote, “Two hours of solid eating and drinking preceded no less than 15 speeches that lasted well into the wee hours of the next morning.”
This was less than five years before Twain, acting as publisher, editor, and literary advisor, helped Grant, stricken with cancer and financial collapse, write his memoirs, which were published posthumously in July 1885.
The placard in that glass case alludes to other notable guests. It reads, “Those who dined on this historic china include Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens and Buffalo Bill among countless other internationally renowned luminaries. In between campaigning in the hotel lobby, Presidents James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley also feasted from these very dishes.”
L. Frank Baum’s breakout novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, more-or-less debuted at a book fair held at The Palmer House from July 5-20, 1900. Baum and his illustrator W.W. Denslow had invested heavily in the book—the publishers did not want to pay for elaborate illustrations, so that came out of the creators’ pockets. At this book fair, the public, for the first time, saw the book, which was officially released that September.
Margaret Ayer Barnes spoke at the "Conference on Major Problems," organized by the Chicago Tribune, in September 1931. Barnes’s historical novel, Years of Grace, had earlier that year been a bestseller, and would earn her the Pulitzer Prize. The problems Barnes discussed were the kind she addressed in her fiction, those of upper-class women in social and cultural settings. First-edition copies of Years of Grace often include a newspaper clipping promoting Barnes’s appearance at the conference.
The Empire Room, the hotel’s principal dining room starting in 1925, became a supper club and entertainment venue on May 4, 1933, in anticipation of the World’s Fair. It quickly became a trendy and beloved night spot, with customers drawn to the lavish meals, elegant décor (gold-leaf ceiling, Tiffany angel sconces, and so forth), top-name entertainers, and intimate setting. The Empire Room hosted legendary performers like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Ella Fitzgerald. After Conrad Hilton took over in 1945, the Empire Room became known for full cabaret reviews and the Merriel Abbott dancers.
Comedians like Jerry Lewis, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and Jimmy Durante also brought their acts to the Empire Room. Grouch Marx performed at the Empire Room, primarily in the 1940s and 1950s, as part of the venue's "House of Stars" variety shows. Groucho Marx lived in Chicago from 1908 to 1920, a period in which the Marx Brothers transitioned from a singing act into a comedy troupe. Minnie Marx, the mother, moved the family from New York to Chicago because it was a more central hub for travelling the nationwide vaudeville circuit. The family first lived in a boarding house at 4649 S. Calumet Avenue. In 1914, they bought a three-flat graystone at 4512 S. Grand Boulevard (now South King Drive), which still stands today. Their father, Sam "Frenchy" Marx, worked as a tailor while the brothers rehearsed in their living room.
Dick Gregory performed at the Empire Room in 1963, one of the first African American comedians to headline the venue. Gregory lived in Chicago for roughly 20 years, from approximately 1954 until 1974. Just out of the army and 20 years old, Gregory first resided in Hyde Park’s University Apartments. Gregory worked at the Chicago Post Office during the day and performed at small Black-owned nightclubs like the Roberts Show Club at night. He got his breakthrough in 1961, when he won over an audience of white Southern executives as a last-minute replacement act at the Playboy Club.
Phyllis Diller served as the final headliner on January 19, 1976. What made The Empire Room so special, that intimacy, ultimately led to its demise. Performers were booking their acts at arenas that sold tens of thousands of tickets, and their fees went up accordingly. With a seating capacity of 500 or less, The Empire Room’s revenue no longer matched its expenses. Though it closed as a regular nightclub in 1976, it was revived for special nights, such as a 1986 event featuring performer Connie Mitchell.
Resident historian Ken Price led the in-house History is Hott tour from 2011 until his death in 2022. Many of the artifacts he collected and curated can be viewed in the Palmer House Archive and Museum, a tiny room tucked away on the mezzanine level. In addition to black-and-white photos, newspaper clippings, old menus, and painted portraits, there is the “official” 1893 recipe for the Palmer House brownie, which was created, at Bertha’s request, by the hotel’s pastry chefs for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The museum is generally not open to the public, but it’s possible to arrange a time to visit. Just recently, the hotel launched a rebranded version of the Price tour called “A Taste of History.” A self-guided tour is also available on The Palmer House website. The Palmer House is still part of the Hilton chain.
