This is a very nice hotel with an enviable position at the foot of North Michigan Avenue. The property is pieced together from several buildings and additions. I personally like the older tower, which originally opened in 1929 as the Medinah Athletic Club. This Art Deco tower is brimming with character and charming touches that you may not get in the newer rooms. When you are not in your room, browse around the public and not-so-public spaces to see some elaborately designed spaces uncommonly seen in today's ultra-modern hotels. Many of the meeting rooms and waiting areas have different motifs, from King Arthur suits of armor to Spanish tiles around a trickling fountain. Look upwards and gaze at the interesting column capitals in the piano bar area. Check out the galleries of historic photographs that depict the unique bulbous dome of the tower surrounded by the old Chicago skyline and a flying dirigible.
The high-rise hotel has 41 floors and 807 rooms. The lobby area (along with all guest rooms) was remodeled in 2001 to be more efficient. The lobby design is moodily slick if not particularly memorable. The guest rooms are very comfortable and chock-full of amenities befitting a hotel of this caliber. I was fortunate enough to stay in a corner room, which is larger than the standard room. Many rooms will have wonderful views of Michigan Avenue or Lake Michigan. Each bathroom feature old-fashioned faucet handles in the sink, a nice touch in what otherwise is a fine and modern facility.
The pseudo-Roman indoor pool is one of the most elaborate ones in the city, perhaps in the country. It was actually filmed in several movies over the years. There is a charge to using the fitness center and the pool, but it does not hurt to drop by for a look. Zest is a slick new restaurant that is the hotel's current addition to the popular North Michigan Avenue corridor.
The Inter-Continental is one of the premier older Chicago hotels because it has tried very hard to preserve its idiosyncratic artistic qualities while creating contemporary and functional spaces around them. After all, this is still a hotel, not a museum.