Historic hotels in the Gold Coast

The Gold Coast earned its name in Chicago’s Gilded Age, when the city’s wealthiest families built mansions along the lakefront north of downtown. Astor Street and its neighbors still hold blocks of landmarked greystones and townhouses, and the area’s hotels share that air of understated elegance.

It is a quieter, leafy counterpoint to the bustle of the Mag Mile just to the south, with the lakefront and Lincoln Park within easy reach.

The guest books here are the best in the city. The Drake has hosted Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana, and in its Cape Cod Room Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio carved their initials into the bar counter — the counter survives. The Ambassador was home to the Pump Room, Chicago’s first post-Prohibition celebrity haunt, where Booth One was the most fought-over table in town; the restaurant there today kept the booth. The Viceroy rebuilt the 1920s terracotta facade of the old Cedar Hotel onto its base, stone by cataloged stone.