The Edgewater Beach Hotel was a resort hotel complex on Lake Michigan in the far-north neighborhood community of Edgewater in Chicago, Illinois, designed by Benjamin H. Marshall and Charles E. Fox. The first section was built in 1916 for its owners John Tobin Connery and James Patrick Connery, located between Sheridan Road and Lake Michigan at Berwyn Avenue. An adjacent south tower building was added in 1924. The resort hosted famous movie and sports stars, and later Martin Luther King Jr. It was also the setting for the celebrity stalking case and shooting that inspired the novel and movie The Natural. The hotel buildings closed in 1967, and were soon after demolished. The Edgewater Beach Apartments to the north were completed as part of the hotel resort complex in 1928. The "sunset pink" apartments complemented the "sunrise yellow" hotel buildings in a similar architectural style. The apartments remain standing and have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Design Designed by Chicago-based architects Marshall and Fox in September 1915, the complex comprised several buildings and recreation grounds. The Main Building, modeled in the shape of a croix fourchée ("forked cross"), initially had 400 rooms and opened on June 3, 1916. It quickly became a success, with a one-story addition to the northeast and southeast wings of the building added in 1919. In April 1923, construction began on a $3 million, 19 story, 600-room tower addition to the south of the Main Building. The Tower Building, which opened for occupancy on February 9, 1924, had a stepped design, tallest at its center, with lower sections to the east and west of the center. The addition, initially called the Annex, was connected to the Main Building by a large hall known as the Passaggio. High-end shops lined the ground floor of the Sheridan Road side, and a marble-tiled open air dance floor and bandshell, known as the Beach Walk, faced the Lake Michigan side. The hotel had a 1,200-foot private beach and offered seaplane service to downtown Chicago. When both buildings were initially constructed, the hotel sat from Lake Michigan. The 1933 extension of Lake Shore Drive north to Foster Avenue resulted in the creation of a private bathing beach east of the hotel and north of Foster along the Lake Michigan shore. History The hotel served many famous guests, including Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplin, Bette