When I found out the 3 Arts Club in Chicago was being renovated and converted to Restoration Hardware’s flagship store I was pretty excited. Not because it’s a store, although I do love RH, but because I lived on the same block as this building for years but had never been inside.
Previously, it was the home to women studying music, drama and the visual arts – hence the name, but it wasn’t open to the public. I believe the public could rent the space for events, parties, weddings, things like that but you couldn’t just walk in off the street to check it out, so it remained a mystery to me.
Last week, while my youngest was in school for the afternoon, a couple friends and I decided we needed to check out the café for lunch. Well, it seems a whole lot of other people did too. Unfortunately, with our limited time, a 2 hour wait just wasn’t feasible so we had to go elsewhere. However, while I was there I wanted to grab some photos of this beautiful space. Unfortunately, after taking about 2 photos I was told they didn’t allow professional photographers. I always love the assumption that because you have a big camera you’re a pro. Oh well….
Here’s one shot I managed: the gorgeous chandelier and pyramid-shaped glass dome centered above the café.

I do intend to get back here for lunch one day when I have time for the long wait. I also want to get back on my own, as to avoid annoying my non-photographer friends with my wandering around looking for things to photograph more surreptitiously.
As I was reading about the space in more detail, there are a lot of areas to uncover that I wasn’t aware of in my quick trip inside….a space with barrel-vaulted ceilings, a grand staircase, a stage! There’s also a roof garden, which we did come back to checkout after our lunch at another nearby restaurant. We were in a bit of a rush but I did manage these two photos:

The second photo is simply a crop of the one above to better fit with a series I’m very slowly working on – Urban Quilt. Here are more images from this work-in-progress series if you care to see how this is evolving.

Stay tuned, I hope to get back soon! And in the meantime, if you’ve visited and have photos from your trip I’d love to see them!