London Guarantee Building

by Suzanne Hanney

Built on the site of Fort Dearborn on the southwest side of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, the London Guarantee & Accident Building is one of four buildings that have anchored the Michigan Avenue Bridge since the 1920s, with throwback ideas from the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893, one of the stars on the Chicago flag.

Designed by Alfred S. Alschuler and completed in 1923, the building’s Beaux Arts facade features Corinthian columns and Roman figures, with a cupola atop the 22-story tower. A sculpture of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, sits above the main entrance, a reference to the maritime insurance sold by the building’s British namesake firm.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the London House on the building’s ground floor was one of the foremost jazz clubs in the U.S., and hosted musicians such as Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra, Ramsey Lewis, George Shearing, Barbara Carroll and many others. Meanwhile, the Stone Container Corporation signed a long-term lease in the 1960s, followed years later by Crain Communications.

The building was largely empty when Oxford Capital Group acquired it in 2013 and two years later, announced an ambitious restoration project. The 452-room LondonHouse hotel, opened in 2016, takes its name from the mid-century jazz club. It features a 22-story glass addition with ballrooms and meeting spaces designed by Goettsch Partners and a threelevel rooftop lounge.

London House

Eric Allix Rogers, courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Center