For the first time in 25 years, the Edgewater Beach Apartments is getting put back in the pink as crews of painters refresh the 20-story Spanish Revival landmark’s legendary color.
Workers have been repainting the southeast wing of the 97-year-old co-op, 5555 N. Sheridan Road, since April and will tackle the other three wings between the spring and fall of 2026.
For now, the building presents an interesting visual contrast with the color-faded wings juxtaposed against the one with a fresh coat of “sunset pink,” the color originally selected by Marshall & Fox, the architecture firm that designed the building.
“It makes the old coating look almost brown [in comparison],” Edgewater Beach Apartments Corp. President Joseph D. Ferrario said. “It’s just so dazzling.”
A resort in the city
A city landmark that’s also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Edgewater Beach Apartments and its distinctive color and Maltese Cross-like floor plan have been a presence on the north lakefront since 1928.
The brick-and-stucco building and its larger Spanish Revival companion, the late, great Edgewater Beach Hotel — painted in “sunrise yellow” — formed a Great Gatsby-style playland on the city’s lakefront.
During the swank hotel’s heyday, guests included celebrities such as Nat King Cole, Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead and Babe Ruth. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there in 1963.
Those who wanted a more permanent stay could take up residence in the Edgewater Beach Apartments and enjoy the buildings’ private lakeside beach, or tune in to dance music on its radio station WEBH.
“The hotel [and apartments were] always touted as this resort in the city with services,” said John Zukowsky, who, along with historian Jean Guarino, wrote the 2016 book Benjamin H. Marshall: Chicago Architect.
“You’d have a shuttle bus that would take people to different locations, like the railroad station. But also to stores like Marshall Fields downtown — and then it also had its own seaplane,” Zukowsky said.
“It was designed as a lifestyle building; that is people could live here as if they were on vacation,” resident Nancy Ferrario said. Ferrario is one of the building’s architecture docents and lives there with her husband, Joseph.
Marshall & Fox’s major work includes the Drake Hotel, South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Drive, and the Blackstone Hotel, 636 S. Michigan Ave.
The Edgewater Beach Hotel’s fortunes waned after losing its private beach when DuSable Lake Shore Drive was extended north in the 1950s, and a public park was placed on the east edge of the complex.
The hotel went bankrupt in 1967 and was demolished and in 1971. But the magnificent apartment building, visible from DuSable Lake Shore Drive, survived — pink paint and all.
A repaint and more
It took more than 500 gallons of sunset pink to cover the southeast wing, Joseph Ferrario said.
And depending on weather, or what’s being painted, it has taken between four to 16 workers to do the job.
Where does one find sunset pink paint? Luckily, the project’s consultants were able to create a new batch by matching it to the color found in a can of historically-correct paint left in the building’s basement from a 1999 repainting.
“The engineers actually did some archaeology on the building and ascertained that this is indeed the 1928 color,” Ferrario said.
The new paint has a measure of elasticity that will allow it to better stand up against expansion and contraction cycles caused by Chicago’s weather.
Work also includes repairing exterior walls and roof structures, as well as the building’s iconic flagged-topped copula, Ferrario said.
This year’s work is expected to wrap up next month, he said.
“This is a pretty substantial project for us, but it’s something that needs to be done,” Ferrario said. “A shareholder said, ‘Oh, we just did this.’ But it’s been 25 years, and the expected life of what we’re doing now: 25 years.”