The London Guarantee Building or London Guaranty & Accident Building is a historic 1923 commercial skyscraper whose primary occupant since 2016 is the LondonHouse Chicago Hotel. This building, which was formerly named the Stone Container Building, is located near the Loop in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. It is one of four historic 1920s skyscrapers that surround the

Michigan Avenue Bridge The DuSable Bridge (formerly the Michigan Avenue Bridge) is a bascule bridge that carries Michigan Avenue (Chicago), Michigan Avenue across the main stem of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. The bridge was proposed ...

over the

Chicago River The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). The river is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chic ...

(the others are the

Wrigley Building The Wrigley Building is a skyscraper located at 400–410 North Michigan Avenue on Chicago's Near North Side. It is located on the Magnificent Mile directly across Michigan Avenue from the Tribune Tower. Its two towers in an elaborate style ...

Tribune Tower The Tribune Tower is a , 36-floor Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic skyscraper located at 435 Magnificent Mile, North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The early 1920s international design competition for the tower bec ...

and

333 North Michigan Avenue 333 North Michigan is a skyscraper in the art deco style located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Architecturally, it is noted for its dramatic upper-level setbacks that were inspired by the 1923 skyscraper zon ...

) and is a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

to the

Michigan–Wacker Historic District The Michigan–Wacker Historic District is a National Register of Historic Places District that includes parts of the Chicago Loop and Near North Side community areas in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The district is known for the Chicago ...

. The building stands on part of the former site of

Fort Dearborn Fort Dearborn was a United States fort, first built in 1803 beside the Chicago River, in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by U.S. troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secre ...

and was designated a

Chicago Landmark Chicago Landmark is a designation by the Mayor and the City Council of Chicago for historic sites in Chicago, Illinois. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artist ...

on April 16, 1996.

History

The London Guarantee & Accident Building was designed by Chicago architect Alfred S. Alschuler and completed in 1923 for the London Guarantee & Accident Company, an insurance firm that was then its principal occupant. The top of the building is noted to resemble the

Choragic Monument of Lysicrates The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates near the Acropolis of Athens was erected by the ''Choregos (ancient Greece), choregos'' Lysicrates, a wealthy patron of musical performances in the Theater of Dionysus, to commemorate the prize in the dithyram ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, but it was modeled after the Stockholm Stadshus. It is located in the

. The building stands on the property formerly occupied by the Hoyt Building from 1872 until 1921. The LondonHouse Hotel name is an homage to the first owner of the 1923 Beaux Arts tower. In the 1930s through the 1950s, the Haywood Publishing Company, founded by George P. Haywood, was housed in the building. The Haywood Publishing company, based in Lafayette, IN, published many periodicals and monthlys for the manufacturing industry. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the studios of Chicago's

WLS (AM) WLS (890 kHz) is a commercial AM broadcasting, AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, through licensee Radio License Holdings LLC, the station airs a talk radio format. WLS studios are in the NBC Tower on North Columbus D ...

radio were located on the fifth floor of the building. For several decades,

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

performed his daily syndicated radio show from studios on the fourth floor. The building was also famous from the 1950s through the early 1970s for The London House, a Chicago jazz nightclub and steakhouse on the west side of the building's first floor; it had its own entrance on Wacker Drive. It was one of the foremost

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

clubs in the country, once home to performers including

Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordin ...

Ramsey Lewis Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis Jr. (May 27, 1935 – September 12, 2022) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and radio personality. Lewis recorded over 80 albums and received five RIAA certification, gold records and three Grammy Awards ...

Bill Evans William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, block chords, innovative chord voicings, a ...

Dave Brubeck David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...

Marian McPartland Margaret Marian McPartland Order of the British Empire, OBE ( Turner;Hasson, Claire, . PhD Thesis. Retrieved 12 August 2008. 20 March 1918 – 20 August 2013), was an English and American jazz pianist, composer, and writer. She was the host of ...

Cannonball Adderley Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is perhaps best remembered by the general public for the 1966 soul ...

Erroll Garner Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad "Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first re ...

Ahmad Jamal Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones; July 2, 1930 – April 16, 2023) was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator. For six decades, he was one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. He was a NEA Jazz Ma ...

, Nancy Wilson, Barbara Carroll,

Bobby Short Robert Waltrip Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005) was an American cabaret singer and pianist who interpreted songs by popular composers from the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold ...

and many others. In the 1980s and 1990s TV show '' Perfect Strangers'', the building's exterior was used as the home of the fictional newspaper ''Chicago Chronicle''. In 2001, the building was acquired by Crain Communications Inc. and was referred to as the Crain Communications Building. Crain Communications and other office tenants occupied the tower until Oxford Capital paid $53 million for the property. Crain sold the building during the summer of 2013 to a Chicago hotel developer, Oxford Capital Group, which remodeled the structure into a 452-room hotel, with the addition of a modern glass addition on an adjacent plot. Goettsch Partners designed the new 22-story addition on a parcel immediately west of the structure. On April 15, 2016, Oxford Capital Group sold the 452-room hotel, but also agreed to a 25-year contract to lease back and manage the hotel. Oxford, however, retained ownership of first and second floor retail space. After an extensive renovation project, the building reopened as the LondonHouse hotel on May 26, 2016.

Gallery

Image:1950+A003020 (3552768274).jpg, 1950 Image:20070530 360 North Michigan Rotunda.JPG , Rotunda ceiling Image:20070530 360 North Michigan Entrance.JPG , London Guarantee Building entrance commemorates

at the top Image:20070530 360 North Michigan and 35 East Wacker.JPG, London Guarantee Building,

Mather Tower Mather Tower (later Lincoln Tower, as designated on the Michigan–Wacker Historic District roster; now identified primarily by its address) is a Neo-Gothic, terra cotta-clad high-rise structure in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is locat ...

and

35 East Wacker 35 East Wacker, also known as the Jewelers' Building, is a 40-story historic building in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, located at the intersection of Wabash Avenue and East Wacker Drive, facing the Chicago Riv ...

Image:20070701 Michigan Avenue Bridge Traffic.JPG,

traffic (Background includes 333 North Michigan,

Carbide & Carbon Building The Carbide & Carbon Building is an Art Deco high-rise built in 1929, located on Michigan Avenue (Chicago), Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The 37-story, landmark is clad in black granite, green and gold terra cotta, with gold leaf and b ...

, London Guarantee Building,

Image:Chicago @ Night (27794805823).jpg, London Guarantee Building lit in the colors of the French flag, after the

2016 Nice truck attack On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people and injuring 450 others. The driver w ...

Notes

External links

* {{authority control 1923 establishments in Illinois Chicago Landmarks Chicago school architecture in Illinois Historic district contributing properties in Illinois Office buildings completed in 1923 Skyscraper hotels in Chicago