Lakewood Lore

Lake Shore Towers was Gold Coast's 'mother lode'

The Gold Coast, Lakewood's prestigious community of high-rises, got its start 64 years ago this month with the announcement of plans to build "the finest residential hotel between New York and Chicago."

It would be 10 stories high, cost $3 million and be called the Lake Shore, according to a news statement made Jan. 28, 1928, by developer C. H. Cummins through the office of architect Frank W. Bail in Cleveland's Hanna Building.

Cummins, who had conceived the project, said it would rise from his 4½-acre wooded estate, Oakcrest, on Edgewater Drive at Cove Avenue. He revealed it would be "the first hotel to take advantage of location on the shore of Lake Erie."

What he didn't know was that it also was destined to become the mother lode of the Gold Coast - the first of today's strip of 13 residential high-rises three-fourths of a mile long, comprising more than 2,800 suites and approximately 3,000 tenants, and representing over $60 million in construction.

Cummins' introductory trumpeting of the hotel's superiority was no mere vauntery. The plans of architect Bail, well known for having designed the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, at West 117th Street and Lake Avenue, provided for a U-shaped structure that was indeed solid. Walls were 24 inches thick.

Moreover, its fireproof steel-reinforced concrete frame featured an exterior of Birmingham buff sandstone, special face brick and polished granite. Art deco motif and marine embellishments were used throughout for ornamentation.

Overlooking the lake was a main-floor ballroom accommodating 400 and a large dining room. Cherrywood elevator cars whisked tenants to 116 spacious, high-ceilinged suites. A sloping terrace connected to the beach with mooring facilities for pleasure craft, and a basement garage parked 180 automobiles.

And all this within only a 12-minute drive from downtown Cleveland.

Nevertheless, during its second year our Gold Coast forerunner ran into money problems. Cummins, who had formed a corporation for financing, was unable to pay a Chicago wholesale firm for furniture and other purchases totaling $150,000.

Finally, after a suit was filed by the creditor, Common Pleas Court appointed Theodore DeWitt, manager of the Hollenden Hotel, as operating receiver for the Lake Shore.

In 1932, the hotel passed out of receivership and into the control of Lake Shore Apartments Inc., a new corporation composed of bondholders with O. P. Alford of the Chicago financial firm of Peabody Co. as president.

Eventually, Lake Shore's 12506 Edgewater Drive became the address of many notable area business executives. Dr. C. L.Graber, founder of Lakewood Hospital, made it his home. Numerous show people checked in. During the 1936-37 Great Lakes Exposition; Aquacade star Eleanor Holm was a guest. Actress Carol Channing and actor Dick Powell also stayed there when in town.

In 1964, as president of National Housing Consultants, Inc., the late Frank P. Celeste, former mayor of Lakewood, bought the venerable patriarch of Gold Coast luxury living for "substantially over $1 million" and converted it to Lake Shore Towers apartments.

In 1971 a $1 million renovation was announced that would change the apartments into a low-rent island. Federal Housing Authority insured a low-interest loan for the project, and a plan similar to that of Lakewood's Westerly Apartments was put into effect.

It is expected that in the future most of Lake Shore's accommodations will be for senior citizens, and the disabled and handicapped.

Current owner is Showe management Corp., a limited partnership headquartered in Columbus, which acquired the hotel in 1985 and has helped it regain its aura of elegance in spite of the change to subsidized housing.

The dining room, which had been the Marius Restaurant before Showe took over has been transformed into the unique and attractive offices of architect Jim Larsen. In them, original cornices and other decorations were restored.

Larsen's quarters and those of two other business tenants are entered by a new door on the building's east side, while the main lobby entrance is reserved for residents.

Many will recall the hotel's huge roof sign, a Lakewood landmark for 43 years. It read "Lake Shore" in neon-tube letters 20-feet high and 80-feet long, and extended 38 feet above the roof.

It was installed in 1930 by Fred Irwin, a resident of the hotel who pioneered neon signs and died in 1983 at age 93.

Fred's widow, Carlyn, 87, who still lives in the Lake Shore, notes that it was once the largest sign along the airmail route between New York and Chicago.

"It was lit every night except during World War II blackouts," according to Carlyn, a long-time prominent community leader who headed Lakewood's wartime rationing board that dispersed stamps for buying coffee, sugar, gasoline and auto tires, commodities in short supply during the conflict.

"The sign was removed about 18 years ago after tenants in a new neighboring high-rise complained that the bright lights shining into their windows bothered them," said Carlyn.

"And I remember at the time my husband telling me, 'It cost more to take down the sign than it did to put it up.' "

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post January 23, 1992. Reprinted with permission.

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