Two competing jewelry firms, the Gorham Manufacturing Company and Benjamin Allen and Company, jointly commissioned this building in 1896, hiring architect Peter J. Weber of D.H. Burnham and Company, the same firm behind Chicago’s Fisher Building, to design it. The Silversmith Building opened in 1897 on Wabash Avenue, in a stretch of the Loop that had rapidly filled with jewelers and silver craftsmen and become known as Jewelers Row.
Its architecture marks a transitional moment in Chicago design, blending Romanesque Revival detailing with the emerging Chicago school style that would define the city’s skyline. The building operated as commercial space for jewelers and wholesalers for decades before its conversion into a boutique hotel, and its Beaux-Arts lobby, with two stained-glass domes and mosaic tilework, remains largely intact. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places and joined Historic Hotels of America in 2016.