Metropolis
July 1999

Burnham, Baby, Burnham
Boutique-hotel chic, Chicago-style, is history.
By Todd Savage

The 1894 Reliance Building's steel frame allowed Charles Atwood to use large windows, which radically distinguished the building from its more solid contemporaries. The white terra-cotta facade was inspired by the 1893 Columbian Exposition's vision of a "White City," and it prompted architectural historian William Jordy to exclaim, "How remote this gossamer conception is from the burly Chicago blocks of the preceding decade."

In a city where boutique hotels don't operate on an if-you-build-it-Puff Daddy-will-come ethos, a Chicago development group has enlisted architectural, rather than furniture and fashion, stars to imbue its property with style. When the 122-room Hotel Burnham opens later this summer, after a $31 million restoration of the landmark Reliance Building that will house it, hotel chic will be the result of design work done a century ago by Chicago luminaries Daniel Burnham, Charles Atwood, and John Wellborn Root.

Guests will get to stay in one of the world's first steel-frame skyscrapers, which was erected at the busy downtown corner of State and Washington streets in 1894. In a city of heavy masonry, the Reliance Building was a revelation: The 15-story tower was clad with a lustrous outline of glazed terra-cotta that clearly articulated its frame, and filled out with a flashy curtain wall of plate-glass windows with projecting bays. The city bought the long-neglected building in 1996 to save it from ruin, and then, last year, sold it to developer McCaffery Interests. Preservation architects from the McClier firm, which did the award-winning restoration of Adler and Sullivan's Rookery Building, were brought back to finish the job they had begun on the exterior. With the help of proj-ect architects from Chicago's Antunovich Associates, they are restoring rich historical details: a sculptural cast-iron stairway, terrazzo corridor floors, mahogany doors fitted with Florentine glass. And the Hotel Burnham's lobby will be as original as anything at the Delano or the Mondrian. Lost long ago, the two-story storefront designed by Root (who died before the building, taken over by Atwood, was completed) is being exactingly re-created from photographs and renderings. The design firm Intra-Spec, of Marina Del Rey, California, is introducing an artist-commissioned mural with elements from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 (which Burnham headed up), as well as custom-made chandeliers and a fireplace referencing the exterior terra-cotta.

Upstairs, the beds will feature headboards embroidered with the Neo-Gothic quatrefoil found in much of the building's ironwork. Designers are framing the signature Chicago windows--central panes flanked by double-hung ventilation glass--with blue velvet curtains and gold Roman shades. Sometimes even practical problems turn out to be a blessing: Architects ruled out an electronic key-card system because it wasn't compatible with the vintage doors and "Reliance"-engraved doorplates. Guests will enter their rooms with metal keys.