DRAKE HOTEL LEASED BY KIRKEBY; REPORTED RENT $280,000 Yearly

January 23, 1937

(Chicago Tribune) - The Drake Hotel yesterday was leased by the newly formed Kirkeby Hotel Company for ten years at a reported rent of $280,000 annually.  The Kirkeby Company also obtained an option to buy the hotel property at any time during the life of the lease for $5,000,000, and assumption of a $4,000,000 mortgage indebtedness to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

The lease was made by the Drake Management Company, which is owned by the National Realty and Investment Company, Edwin L. Brashears is president of both companies.

A. S. Kirkeby, president and managing director of the Kirkeby Hotel Company, announced no changes would be made in the Drake’s staff.  Other officers of the Kirkeby Company are Harry S. O’Neal, vice president, and Paul Ludmann, secretary and treasurer.  O’Neal has been connected with hotel operation in Chicago for twenty years.  Ludmann has been president of the White Paving Company for fourteen years.  He is severing his connection with the paving company and associated interests to take up his hotel duties.

The board of directors of the new hotel company includes the officers and Marius Kirkeby and Jule A. Peterson.

The Drake was built by Tracy C. and John B. Drake and was opened in 1920.  The Drakes lost control of the hotel in 1933.

Brashears will continue to operate the Blackstone Hotel which also was at one time owned and operated by the Drakes.

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