A once 5-star luxurious hotel accommodating notable figures like Ernest Hemingway and Al Capone and beautifully located on the feet of Lake Michigan - this is what The Shoreland is. Chancing my eyes upon this 12-floor grandeur of 20's style architecture some time in September two years ago, I never expected it was going to be the place far away from home that I call home.
The Shoreland is a stellar example of beautiful on the outside and not-quite-beautiful on the inside. For a second, its exterior may fool you into expecting lavish, velvety tapestries, shiny glimmery chandeliers and plush red carpet. Once you step inside the lobby, you are left cold with the shattering reality of its dirty windows, peeling paint, loosen pipes and cracked floors.
There are "vintage" mismatched sofas flanking your left, shopping carts on your right, a TV corner and a harpsichord with missing keys on the far right, and a shabby reception desk before you electronically swipe your ID and consider yourself home. (What enigma holds behind the shopping carts? Left-over carts from the nearby Walgreen's and Treasure Island, possibly pushed over all the way to the Shoreland by lazy persons like me who think it's okay to leave a cart to be reused again and again, for the greater good).
Enter elevators - the kind that creaks and heaves, forcing you to pray hard that it would not crash down or get stuck like that movie called Speed that scared jack out of you when you were six. It is also the moody kind that selects the floors it wants to take you to; mysteriously leaving out the 3rd, 7th and 11th floor on many occasions.
The real thrill of exploring this rundown hotel of a dorm is felt as you navigate your way through childishly mural-painted walls. Each floor - all seven floors of houses - have adopted the mural way of life (pun intended), establishing house themes and colors to orient disoriented first timers into feeling at "dorm".
The sixth floor, my floor, happened to choose the worst theme of time travel, and possibly boasted the worst-skilled student painters. Images of distorted dinosaurs and the same moustached man in an astronaut suit, mexican poncho, roman robes one wall to the next will creep first timers like it did me.
Yet again, with every trivial detail, creepy mural and all, The Shoreland just grows on you. From the boiler that clangs all through winter and rudely intrudes your (okay, my) wildest dreams, its frequent annoying fire drills that magically always sets off at 3am, its falling-apart dressers and headless showers, to the dilapidated ballroom, The Shoreland earns your fondness. It becomes your home.
Next year, when greedy developers raze this beauty to the ground, or remarket it as a prime condominium completely removed from its identity, I will look upon the lake and smile to myself. I have indeed gained a place far from home that I call home. If not through pictures and legacy, The Shoreland will continue to live in our hearts.
