Take a look inside Palmer House, a Gilded Age hotel that has hosted US presidents and Hollywood legends

By Kristine Villarroel

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The original Palmer House opened its doors in 1870 at State and Quincy Streets, a different location than the current hotel. A year later, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 burned it down.

A second Palmer House hotel opened in 1873, and quickly became an icon in the Chicago downtown as the Palmers grew their social standing within society at the peak of the Gilded Age.

By 1893, when the World's Fair came to town, Bertha Palmer was at the helm of the Chicago society and served as the head of the Board of Lady Managers for the event, cementing her prominence in the Midwestern elites.

After Potter and Bertha's deaths, the hotel continued to be run by their sons, Honoré and Potter II, and in the mid-1920s, underwent a significant reconstruction and expansion.

The hotel, which was originally seven stories, expanded to its current 25-story building while remaining open for business, as the reconstruction was done in parts.

In the following years it became a hub for entertainers during the Roaring 20s and prominent figures, with every single US president since Ulysses S. Grant — except for George W. Bush — staying at the hotel at least once, per Hilton's website. It has also welcomed figures like Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde.

The hotel was purchased by hotelier Conrad Hilton in 1945 and operates today as a Hilton property.

Today, the Palmer House has over 1,600 guest rooms and nearly 130,000 square feet of meeting rooms and event spaces.

Rooms at the hotel start at a standard mid-to-upscale nightly rate of $240 for November 2025, per the hotel's website.

As soon as they walk into the Palmer House, visitors see a hand-carved bronze door that was once part of the historic storefront for C.D. Peacock's fine jewelry store on the street-level retail floor of the building.

The doors were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and are accompanied by gilded panels and green marble walls.

A grand marble staircase decorated with flowers, chandeliers, and brass handrails takes visitors from the street into the hotel lobby.

At the top of the marble staircases, there's a bronze statue of Romeo and Juliet. While this is perhaps the most explicit nod to romance in the lobby's decorations, it is far from the only one in the hotel, which was a symbol of love itself as a wedding gift from Potter to Bertha.

Other symbols include peacocks at the entrance and figures of Greek mythological characters, like the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, in the lobby's ceiling.

The hotel's pride and joy is its grand lobby, which was imagined as a type of European drawing room and features the most luxurious and glamorous displays of the original owners' Gilded Age taste.

The ceiling features 21 panels of painted frescoes depicting different scenes from Greek mythology. Once described as "a wonderful protest of romance against the everydayness of life" by columnist George Will, it was painted by the French artist Louis Pierre Regal.

The lobby was inspired by Bertha Palmer's friendship with French Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

Bertha Palmer, who was dedicated to decorating the Palmer House with French art as a nod to her family's heritage, is said to have accumulated the largest collection of Impressionist art outside of France, most of it now living inside the Art Institute of Chicago.

The marble staircase features two 24-karat gold-dipped bronze statues and candelabras designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Each of the two Winged Angels weighs 1.25 tons and are said to be some of the biggest structures designed by Tiffany.

The lobby also features Tiffany chandeliers.

Atop the marble staircases is the Empire Room, which was once the hotel's main dining room and main stage for the big-name musicians who came to perform at the Palmer House's supper club.

This club served as a major entertainment hub in the city, operating from 1932 to 1976. It welcomed stars like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, and Louis Armstrong.

Since then, it has been used as a venue for private events such as weddings.

A mezzanine with balconies overlooks the lobby. It almost begs visitors to look up and take in the intricate designs painted on the ceiling while also providing additional, and more private, spaces to sit.

Walking through the Palmer House lobby feels like witnessing its history, as you walk past walls lined with paintings, photographs, and documents that nod to its place in the city.

Glass cases also display artifacts, like old room keys and some of the original china.

A couple floors above the grand lobby are two luxurious ballrooms. In Palmer House's history, these grand rooms were often the backdrop to performances.

Today, weddings, conferences, and other events take place here.

In total, the Palmer House has over 130,000 square feet of event space, from the ornate ballrooms — which can hold over 1,600 guests — to 78 breakout rooms for smaller meetings.

The Grand Ballroom measures 9,248 square feet and connects to the State Ballroom. The balcony space atop the ballroom also adds an additional 2,266 square feet, per the hotel's map.

It features original light fixtures, wall plaster, chandeliers, ceiling details, and other ornate decorations, per the Commission of Chicago Landmarks.

The State Ballroom provides an additional 3,617 square feet to the event space, which can welcome up to 1,653 guests in total.

Like the other ballrooms, the State Ballroom has floors supported by thousands of coiled steel springs to amplify and facilitate dancers' movement on the dance floor, per the Commission of Chicago Landmarks.

The Red Lacquer Room has bright-red walls and gold accents.

Like the Grand and State ballrooms, the Red Lacquer room displays its original light fixtures, as well as decorative wall plaster, ceiling details, cornices, chandeliers and wall sconces, per the Commission of Chicago Landmarks.

With red velvet sitting booths tucked into the walls, it's easy to imagine the mid-century gossip that would've been exchanged as dancers whirled past.

More hidden and intimate, the Crest Hill room has dark wood paneling and a fireplace and is designed for smaller gatherings.

Although the room isn't preserved from the original building, it's not hard to imagine the type of cigar-filled 1920s meetings that might've taken place here.

Back downstairs and adjacent to the grand lobby is one of the newer additions to the hotel: Potter's Bar, a prohibition-style speakeasy that opened in 2024.

The bar pays homage to Chicago's Prohibition history with pictures on the walls and cocktails inspired by Al Capone, who once ran the city's bootlegging scene.

The bar is a quiet, dark, and intimate escape from some of the larger rooms in the hotel.

The hotel rooms offer a similar experience to other mid-to-upscale hotel chains such as Hilton Hotels and Resorts, of which the Palmer House is a part.

The rooms, which are renovated and furnished in neutral colors and textiles, are comfortable, though not as distinct as the rest of the hotel.

Exploring this hotel feels like a journey through history. Its various spaces walk you through its past, from the glamorous peak of the Gilded Age to the emergence of the Roaring 20s and beyond.

Beyond just a place to stay in Chicago's downtown Loop district, the Palmer House is a destination in itself.