Lakeside Inn

The Lakeside Inn has a long and varied history, both as a building and as an institution. In the 19th century, the area was a major site for commercial fishing, and for logging. Much of the timber to rebuild Chicago after its disastrous fire in 1871 was shipped across Lake Michigan in boats that were loaded at massive piers near where the Lakeside Inn now stands. The Union Pier was a mile to the south at Berrien Street, in the town named for the pier. Lakeside had its own pier at Pier Street, approximately a half mile to the north of the inn. By the 1890s, however, Lakeside was already becoming a summer resort community for Chicagoans, with its delightful location on the lake, and good railroad transportation. Because the prevailing winds are from the west, it has the best of both worlds as compared to Chicago - cooler air temperatures in the summer, and warmer lake water for swimming. We are getting ahead of the story, however. Seventy-eight acres including land now occupied by the Lakeside Inn were purchased in 1844 by 58 year old Alfred Ames, who came from Vermont. The area was known as the Clay Banks because sailors used the high clay bluffs as landmarks as they sailed along the lake shore. Ames' wife, Mary, remained in Illinois for the first year while Alfred built built a log cabin on the property. This was the first home built on the lake proper in the area. The first school in the township was at the Ames' house with Mrs. Ames acting as the teacher of the nine children in attendance. The Ames themselves had two children, Alfred born in 1848, and Fisher in 1856. Alfred Ames died your of small pox in 1864. At the young age of 12 Fisher became the man of the family and helped his mother open a resort on the lake called Pleasant Grove. Sunday school gatherings as well as family picnics were the normal event at Pleasant Grove during the summer months. The Ames' Grove was also the meeting place of the Lakeside Anti-Horse Thief Association, formed in 1876. Legend has it that a horse thief was once hanged from a beech tree on the bluff along the lake, in front of where the hotel now stands. The most illustrious owner of the property was Arthur Aylesworth. He and his brother discovered the resort as boys on a camping trip, and in 1901 persuaded their parents to purchase it, including almost 30 acres of land for $4,500. Arthur Aylesworth's father died in 1917, and two years later his mother deeded the property to him. He had been a world adventurer, having traveled in South America, and produced films about his game hunting in Alaska. He had toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, operated a gambling hall and bar in Las Vegas, and had married and divorced Florence Young, the sister of a movie star named Clare Kimball Young. At this time the property was referred to as the Aylesworth Hotel. After the turn of the century automobile traffic had become more frequent on Lake Shore Road, which went all the way to Chicago, and the inn had to be expanded with the first of what ultimately would be three additions. The building was enlarged to the east, making the axis of the inn running from east to west, perpendicular to the lake. The inn at this point was two stories in height, and a picture of it is displayed currently in the lobby. A few years later a larger structure was added to the building, on the north, more than doubling its size and increasing the height of the building to three stories. The present lobby and central section of the Lakeside Inn are located in this second addition, which changed the axis of the building to north/south, running parallel to the lake. If you go to the attic of the building, you can still see remnants of the wooden shingled roof above the second floor of the older part of the structure. In about 1915 the final addition was constructed, three stories tall to the south of the present lobby, comprising the ballroom and restaurant, health spa below, and two floors of sleeping rooms above. This latest section of the building was designed with a large gable at the third floor to match one on the older section of the building. From the front of the inn, one would not notice that it is comprised of several sections, but this is more evident at the rear, where some of the walls are covered with stucco, and others with wooden clapboards. The hotel is located on a sand dune, and is basically three stories in height, but with an English basement at the rear, which is behind the crest of the hill. It has a half dozen ground floor entrances on its various sides. As far as is known, no architect was involved in its design. It has two large stone fireplaces, back to back, one in the lobby and the other in the ballroom. Across Lake Shore Road to the west is a private beach along Lake Michigan. The inn is approximately 70 feet above the lake, with about 90 stairs down. Arthur Aylesworth not only operated the hotel, but owned much other property. He was always buying, mortgaging and selling land, in addition to starting the first telephone company in the area, and operating the local water works. As was unfortunately often the case in those days, he was hostile to Jewish people, and the advertisements for his subdivision, called Lakeside Park, contained the assurance these were "Restricted Properties. When Jewish families appeared at the hotel, it instantly became completely booked. Anti-semitism in Lakeside was not limited to the Lakeside Inn. Dr. Louis Gordon, a physician from Chicago, had been in the habit of renting a house each summer at Rush's Cottages, a Jewish enclave a little north of the hotel. In the early 1920s anti Jewish sentiment became so rabid that fences and even armed guards were employed on each side of Rush's beach, to confine their guests. Signs were put up reading "No Dogs or Jews Allowed. Merchants were pressured not to deliver food or other provisions to Jewish families in Lakeside. Dr. Louis Gordon's son George, an attorney, took a case all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. The court did not rule on the civil rights violations to the Jewish families, but did hold that riparian rights to the beach did not permit an owner to construct fences to the water's edge. This is still the law in Michigan today. Things became so bad that Dr. Gordon and several other Jewish businessmen contracted to purchase an apple orchard in Union Pier, a mile and one-half south of Lakeside, with plans to develop it as the Gordon Beach subdivision. The rest of the investors ultimately dropped out of the venture, for one reason or another, but Dr. Gordon carried out the project himself, including constructing the Gordon Beach Inn in two stages in 1925 and 1929. Union Pier then developed a large Jewish population, and after World War II a significant African-American population. The most prosperous era for the Lakeside Inn was the 1920s when the economic boom and increased use of the automobile made it a major vacation spot for Chicagoans, and others. Rooms, which rented for $7.50 per night, were often reserved a year in advance, and Sunday dinner cost $2.50. The restaurant employed African-American waiters who worked at the Palmer House in Chicago during the rest of the year. Aylesworth had beautiful gardens, and a mini-zoo behind the hotel, which included a pet bear, deer, goats, and peacocks. There was gambling just off the lobby, and heavy consumption of liquor, especially during Prohibition. In fact, it is said the bootleggers' boats from Canada would beach themselves in front of the hotel, and the guests would wade out into the lake to help unload the cases of whiskey. Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago was a frequent visitor to the inn. The 1930s brought economic depression, which affected Aylesworth and the hotel. He went bankrupt more than once, but somehow managed to maintain ownership of the inn. At the time of World War II a local farmer sold him 200 chickens every Friday during the summer season, indicating that at least 400 chicken dinners were being consumed each weekend at the hotel. At one time there was a plan to turn it into a retirement home, and the ramp from the lobby to the ballroom was installed to accommodate wheelchairs. Aylesworth maintained ownership of the property into the 1950s. By that time, his second wife had died. She was an actress, named Virginia Harned, who toured the country in a play called "The Woman He Married," produced by her husband. To this day her presence is felt in the building by many, especially in and near room 30. Years before her death she was shot, but not killed by Aylesworth, who claimed it was an accident. Local belief, however, ran contrary. During the massive rehabilitation of the building in 1995, a towel was found hidden in a wall with Aylesworth's initials on it, and apparent blood stains. The workers on the job speculated that it was related to the shooting decades earlier. At the end of his life, Aylesworth, who lived in the inn, would watch a tiny television set in the lobby, until he fell asleep. At about 10:00 o'clock each night, the handyman who lived in one of the out-buildings behind the inn, would be awakened, he says by the ghost of Virginia Aylesworth, and he would go to the inn, wake up Mr. Aylesworth, and tell him it was time to undress and go to bed. Through the following decades, many people have detected the presence of the ghost of Mrs. Aylesworth, perhaps most especially artists from Eastern Europe who were there in the 1980s, but also including guests up to the present day.