“Let us be clear about one thing from the start. Chicago, a city with an auspicious past and present of prestidigitation and legerdemain, has never before had a space for magic anything close to The Hand & The Eye.
“I’ve already written about Broadway designer David Rockwell’s stunning interiors within creator Glen Tullman’s opulent, $50 million renovation of the McCormick Mansion on the corner of Ontario and Rush streets, most recently the home of Lawry’s Prime Rib, although you’d never know.
“The service is exemplary, and the mansion was far from overcrowded on Friday night. One felt seen. Or watched, depending on your point of view.
“The menu has a historic Chicago vibe (think Parker House rolls, Chicken Vesuvio and Baked Alaska) served on Italian china in a glamorous room, an intentional throwback to the hotel ballrooms of lost Loop nights out of old.
“So The Hand & The Eye is a work in progress. Still, anyone who loves magic and its historic role in this city would surely want this remarkable venture to thrive. It’s like nowhere else I’ve been, like nothing else we have, and, unlike so many of the new ‘immersive’ entertainment attractions in the city, entirely based on old-school, person-to-person interaction.” (Jones, Chicago Tribune, 7/20/26)
“There are a lot of maybes involved in The Hand & The Eye, the 36,000-square-foot magic-themed entertainment and dining complex set to open this month inside the distinctively eccentric McCormick Mansion on the corner of Ontario and Rush streets alongside the struggling Magnificent Mile. The castle-like mansion is best remembered as the throwback home of Lawry’s the Prime Rib, which closed in 2020 after a 46-year run, but further back in the 20th century, it was also the home of The Kungsholm, a renowned Scandinavian smorgasbord with its own improbable puppet opera theater.
“Tullman, a magic geek since he was a boy, has just dropped some $50 million on a very upscale venture in this very mansion that, if it succeeds, will be the most substantial visitor-friendly addition to the Magnificent Mile area since before COVID, creating at least 200 new Chicago jobs and potentially lifting the midsection of Michigan Avenue out of its current economic malaise.
“Nonetheless, ‘this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,’ Rockwell says from New York, ‘in that it tied together my two main interests in how people come together, which is performance and dining. It also came with a fascinating unicorn of a building with a monolithic facade that is both elegant and mysterious and entirely differentiated from every other building nearby. And as I think of all the things I have ever designed, this one has the largest amount of detail per square foot.’
“The mansion’s historic staircase remains intact. So does an original fireplace. The balustrade was built in Highland Park in the 1920s. There is an outdoor patio and a basement vault. ‘This is a 100-year venture,’ Tullman says of his palace of varieties.” (Jones, Chicago Tribune, 4/7/26)
“L. Hamilton McCormick, the nephew of famed agriculturalist Cyrus McCormick, and his wife, Constance Plummer McCormick, commissioned a four-story Italian Renaissance home with bricks imported from Belgium (and wrapped in straw) on the corner of Ontario and Rush Street. At various points in its history, the house also housed a puppet theater and a members-only nightclub called the Continental Casino. A fourth-floor ballroom hosted as many as 400 guests including, on occasion, visiting royalty hosted by Mrs. McCormick. Rockwell’s new design will include a roof garden as part of the venue.” (Jones, Chicago Tribune, 5/16/25)
Preservation Chicago is thrilled with The Hand & The Eye, and we are proud to have worked closely with Glen Tullman and the development team for the past two years to optimize the historic building’s original elements — lending authenticity and depth to the immersive experience that no amount of new construction could replicate.
Bravo to Glen Tullman, David Rockwell, and the entire team for creating something genuinely extraordinary in one of Chicago’s most historically layered buildings.
The McCormick Mansion is a historic building with many interesting periods and layers. Built in 1895 as a Renaissance Revival private residence for L. Hamilton and Constance Plummer McCormick, the building’s history reads as a capsule of Chicago’s social and cultural life over 130 years: from a private mansion to Pierre’s Continental Casino, to the celebrated Kungsholm Swedish Restaurant with its renowned puppet opera theater, to Lawry’s The Prime Rib (1974–2020) — a 46-year anchor of Near North dining — and now to The Hand & The Eye, one of the most ambitious and creative adaptive reuses in Chicago in recent memory. The mansion carries a rare Orange Rating in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, recognizing its exceptional historic and architectural significance.
Preservation Chicago encourages a landmark designation for the McCormick Mansion. The Hand & The Eye’s $50 million investment and 100-year vision are exactly the kind of committed stewardship that a Chicago Landmark Designation can recognize and reinforce.