Devonshire Hotel

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Devonshire Hotel, Regency Hotel, Tokyo Hotel, Freehand Chicago
Life Span: 1927-Present
Location: 19 E Ohio
Architect: Ralph C. Harris

Polk’s Chicago Numerical Street and Avenue Directory, 1928

Devonshire Valet Service

Devonshire Grill

Chicago Classified Telephone Directory February 1934
Devonshire Hotel 19 E Ohio SUPerior-1900

Chicago Telephone White Pages July 1964
Devonshire Hotel 19 E Ohio SU 7-4900

Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1936

(Pictures on back page.)
In Mrs. Florence Thompson Castle’s wide flung acquaintanceship with men the police last night sought the solution of the mystery of murder. Among those the police hope to question is James Britt, 45 years old, formerly a furrier at Stevens Point, Wis.

Britt, who violated probation at Stevens Point and is therefore a fugitive from Wisconsin, has cashed a number of worthless checks recently on the near north side and is known to have purchased clothing for Mrs. Castle, a slim, attractive night club hostess 24 years old. The woman’s body was found early yesterday in her small apartment on the fifth floor of the Devonshire hotel, 19 East Ohio street. It lay on the bed, clad only in a silk night garment. Mrs.

Castle had been choked and her skull had been crushed with a brick. The brick was broken in the slayer’s furious assault. Its bloodstained halves lay on a pillow beside the victim’s head. The time of the murder was place dat about 1 a. m.

Boy Sees Mother Slain.
There were bizarre elements in the crime that puzzled the police. The strangest circumstance of all was the story told by James Thompson Jr., 7 years old, son of Mrs. Castle by her, first marriage. Jimmy, according to his own narrative, lay beside his mother on the bed while she was being slain. At that time he apparently did not realize what was taking place.

He talked with the slayer, the child said. He described him first as a “white man wearing a black mask,” and later as a colored man.

Some of the investigators were inclined to be skeptical of the boy’s story. They thought he might be romancing and was really asleep when the crime occurred.

Others accepted his account at face value, although they were puzzled by his statement that he went to sleep after the murder and did not awake until daylight. Then he gave the alarm to the hotel clerk.

“Black Legion” on Mirror.
Another weird aspect of the case was the legend left by the slayer on the mirror of Mrs. Castle’s dresser. This was printed with a red lipstick taken from a dresser drawer.

It said: “Black Legon Game” [apparently a misspelling of “Black Legion Came”]. Below that was a crudely drawn skull and crossbones. The police e believed, however, that the Black Legion-an organization on the lines of the Ku Klux Klan which recently came to notice through a murder in Detroit–had no connection with the slaying. Their opinion was that the scrawl on the mirror. was a clumsy attempt of Mrs. Castle’s slayer to mislead them.

Another Mystery in Case.
A third puzzling circumstance was the discovery in the bathroom of Mrs. Castle’s apartment of a rag saturated with what appeared to be black grease paint such as is used by stage performers. Some of the paint also was found on a water tap in the bathtub.

This led to a supposition that the murderer had some knowledge of theatricals and might have applied greasepaint to his face and hands before entering the apartment and washed off the stuff after the slaying, The Devonshire and the nearby Berkshire hotel are frequented by theatrical folk. The black greasepaint might have given the boy the impression that his mother’s assailant was colored or. wore a black mask, police pointed out. The child said he saw the slayer go to the bathroom and wash and “his hands seemed to be getting whiter.”

Other Clews Are Found.
The investigators were confronted with a multiplicity of other clews. Their belief was that the slaying was a crime of vengeance committed by jealous suitor. At the same time they, were considering a robbery theory. Jimmy told them the killer rifled nis mother’s pocketbook. This theory, was weakened, however, by the fact that Mrs. Castle was known to have little money. She had not worked for: some months because of illness.

By her nickname of of “Micky Mrs. Castle was well known as an entertainer and hostess to patrons of night clerk resorts in the bohemian atmosphere of the near north side. She had acquaintanceships, too, with men in other cities. had been n married and divorced at least twice.

Worthless Checks Give Clew.
Attention was called to the likelihood of Britt as a suspect when the management of the Devonshire hotel recalled he cashed of worthless checks written against the $70, Citizens National bank of Stevens Point.

These checks came back marked “not sufficient funds” and the hotel that he was a ward state board management was furthest informed of control in Wisconsin. Gordon Shipman of Wisconsin Rapids, agent who was in charge of the case, said that Britt’s probation was withdrawn two weeks ago.

“He was sentenced to Waupun prison for failure to provide for his wife and child,” said Shipman. have been looking for him to put him away since this matter of the checks came up. He has not been in Stevens Point recently.”

Patrons of the cocktail bar in the hotel recalled having seen Britt in company with Mrs. Castle several times, and others reported that she had told of his purchases of clothing for her.

Corresponds with Convicts.
Several convicts in the Colorado state prison at Canon City corresponded with her two years ago and one trail of police investigation led in that direction.

The theory that jealousy inspired the murder was strengthened also by the story of 7 year old Jimmy. The boy said the killer asked him: Who were you and your mother out with last night? What did the man look like?”

Jimmy arrived in Chicago early Sunday from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to spend the summer with his mother and other relatives here. He had been living in Wilkes-Barre with his paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Bert Thompson. His father, James B. Thompson, who was divorced from Mrs. Castle in 1933, has remarried and is now living in Boston.

Chicago Tribune, March 4, 1950

CAPITAL STOCK OF DEVONSHIRE SOLD FOR $550,000
Morris R. DeWoskin, hotel broker and operator, and Benjamin F. Fohrman, attorney, yesterday purchased the entire capital stock of Devonshire Hotel, Inc., owner of the 16 story Devonshire hotel, 19 E. Ohio st., for $550,000. They offered to buy the stock for that sum contingent on higher bids at an auction set for yesterday. There were no bids received, however, and DeWoskin and Fohrman obtained the stock thru their nominee, Archie E. Richards.

The new owners will take over the hotel in about 10 days, said Ben Gold, who with Charles A. Cunningham, and Irving Herriott are trustees for the stock. Gold has been operating the hotel. The Devonshire was built in 1928. It contains 225 rooms.

Chicago Tribune, November 11, 2014

HIPSTER HOSTEL IN WORKS DOWNTOWN.
River North development in old Tokyo Hotel to target both young epicures and business travelers

By Corilyn Shropshire
A highly styled, high-end hostel will join a crop of new hotels sprouting up downtown.

The Freehand Hostel, set to open in spring 2015, has set aside 40 percent of its planned 217 rooms for shared sleeping, with rooms featuring four to eight beds, many of them bunk-style. The property, being developed by the New York-based Sydell Group, is under construction in the gutted space that was the Tokyo Hotel on East Ohio Street.

It is the second hostel Sydell is developing under the Freehand brand; the Freehand Miami was the first. Several more, including one under construction in Los Angeles, are planned, said Sydell founder and CEO Andrew Zobler.

Zobler describes Chicago’s Freehand as more “urban and sophisticated than your average hostel,” with an outpost of its Miami predecessor’s buzzy hipster bar—the Broken Shaker—planned for the lobby. “People come to a hostel because they want to meet other people,” he told the Tribune. “If you want to be left alone, it’s not the right place for you.”

The hostel—with rooms by celebrity designers Roman and Williams—is expected to cater to young hipsters who may have the style but not necessarily the deep pockets to frequent the crop of boutique hotels popping up downtown in recent months. The Freehand Chicago, according to Zobler, has taken the design up a notch to help it compete with area hotels.

Zobler declined to be specific about the prices for the shared and private rooms, but the Freehand’s sister property in Miami offers private rooms for about $196 a night on a weekend in December and a single bed in a shared room of eight for about $37.

However, unlike the Freehand Miami, the Chicago version will cater mostly to business travelers, who are the biggest money generators in the hotel industry. That’s why more than half of Freehand Chicago’s rooms will be private.

“You have a lot of hostel travelers when the weather’s good, you don’t have so many of those travelers in the winter,” Zo-bler said. “We wanted to make sure the bread-and-butter corporate business travelers would like (it).”

The Freehand offers a twist in what industry watchers are calling a boom in Chicago’s hotel market. The number of hotel rooms available nightly in Chicago has climbed more than 6 percent since July 2011, according to Chicago tourism officials. So far this year, the total supply of hotel room nights in the city has risen to 11.27 million from 10.89 million. And the growth is expected to con-tinue, industry watchers say.

And with more hotels in the works, such as the 52-story Loews in Streeterville, the Virgin Hotel near Lake Street and Wabash Avenue or the newly opened Godfrey, the number of available hotel rooms is expected to climb between 7 and 10 percent, according to Peter Greene, first vice president at CBRE Chicago. “We’ll see more in the future,” said Greene. “There’s a lot of (hotel room) supply coming in and it will affect the downtown market as a whole.”

Other recently opened boutique hotels include the Kinzie in the Loop and Hotel Indigo near Millennium Park.

Greene added that the volume of direct flights to and from Chicago, as well as the city’s heightened restaurant and shopping pro-file, are likely to continue to grow. As will its well of travelers who want chic digs in which to lay their heads after a long day of business meetings, touring, shopping or socializing.

“With so many companies coming in from the suburbs and the new high tech corridor in the West Loop, we’re going to see growth in the market,” he added.

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