Housed inside a greystone building, the Wheelhouse Hotel revels in “the story of a life well lived,” explains designer Nina Grondin, founder and partner at Curioso, who worked in tandem with Bedderman Lodging on the hotel. “We wanted guests to feel as if they were coming to Chicago and staying with a friend.” To create that familiar feeling, the local firm looked no further than the building’s neighbor: Wrigley Field.

The living room lobby is home base for guests and locals alike, donning salvaged stadium seating, a vintage scoreboard, and lounge chairs with baseball stitching. Perhaps nothing speaks more to the baseball motif than a massive installation from artist Christophe Gausparro, which comprises 400 baseball bats that start within a cubby wall of shelves and “gradually fly out of the wall through the lobby and over the reception desk,” describes Grondin. “We wanted to make sure the bold and direct references are artistic and clever while the smaller ones feel like Easter eggs for those who may be looking more carefully for those connections.” Take the 25-cent pack of Wrigley gum left on pillows at night in guestrooms, a nod to William Wrigley Jr., founder of the chewing gum empire. At the same time, the 21 rooms boast custom headboards that evoke the leather of old-school catcher’s mitts while also being “bold and colorful, yet muted and calming.”

F&B offerings include Union Full Board pizzeria as well as sleek basement cocktail bar Tinker to Evers, which cheekily refers to writer Franklin Pierce Adams’ 1910 poem Baseball’s Sad Lexicon that recalls the seamless double plays by famous Chicago Cubs Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance. “Experience and memory creation are directly connected to emotion” in the hotel, states Grondin. “We love the idea of curiosity and exploration. We hope to invoke that feeling in our guests as they discover the hotel.”