La Banque Hotel ★★★★

The Homewood State Bank, Still Showing Its Hand

Most hotels in old banks keep a brass detail and hope you notice. This one keeps the vaults. The Homewood State Bank went up on Ridge Road in 1925 and reopened as a hotel in 2015, and the conversion treated the machinery of the old business as the decoration. The main vault is now a private dining room, its door inspected and signed by J. Edgar Hoover. The largest vault is the fitness studio. Safety deposit boxes have been worked into the bar, and the room numbering follows the same logic. It is a small building with a long memory, and it does not oversell it.

Why It Works

Two things. First, identity: eighteen rooms behind a 1925 bank facade, brought back by a French Canadian owner with a clear idea of what a village hotel should be, which is a far rarer proposition in the Chicago suburbs than another block of chain rooms near the interstate. Second, the restaurant does real work. La Voute Bistro and Bar is not an afterthought lobby counter but a bistro with its own following, which is what allows a hotel of this size to feel occupied rather than empty.

Why This Location

Homewood is a commuter village south of Chicago, and the hotel sits on Ridge Road in the middle of it, which puts the point of the address in plain terms: the Metra station is a short walk and the ride into the city runs around forty minutes. You can spend the day in the Loop and come back to a street where nothing is open after ten. Golf is immediately across the road at the Ravisloe Country Club, and Aurelio’s, which has been feeding the neighbourhood since the fifties, is part of the local furniture. For anyone with business or family on the south side, it is a far better base than an airport hotel.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: Small town Art Deco, French inflected, unhurried

• Rooms: Eighteen, in Corner King, Deluxe King and Deluxe Queen layouts

• Best For: Chicago trips without Chicago prices, golfers, travellers who like a building with a past

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: Dinner in the old bank vault, on a door signed by J. Edgar Hoover

• Dining: La Voute Bistro and Bar, Midwest cooking with a French essence under executive chef Robert Burt, with Parisienne gnocchi, ratatouille, boeuf au poivre and steak frites on the menu

• Amenities: Fitness studio inside the former main vault, private vault dining room, animals accepted, free parking

• Attractions: Ravisloe Country Club across the street, the Metra line into central Chicago, downtown Homewood

Eighteen Rooms, Numbered Like Deposit Boxes

The room count is the first thing that shapes a stay here. Eighteen keys means the ground floor belongs as much to the bistro as to the hotel, and the lobby behaves like a bar rather than a waiting area. Rooms run Corner King, Deluxe King and Deluxe Queen, with sitting areas rather than a desk pushed against a wall, and the numbering borrows from the safety deposit boxes downstairs, which is the sort of detail that either delights you or passes unnoticed. Corner rooms are the ones to ask for, for the light on two sides.

La Voute, and Dinner in the Vault

La Voute Bistro and Bar is the reason the hotel works as a place to stay in rather than a place to sleep. Robert Burt runs the kitchen, and the register is Midwest produce with a French hand: Parisienne gnocchi made in house, ratatouille, boeuf au poivre, steak frites. The bar is built partly from the bank’s old safety deposit boxes. The private dining room in the main vault is the room to book for a group, and it comes with the best anecdote in the building attached to its door.

Before You Book

Animals are accepted, which is uncommon in a hotel this small. Check in is from three in the afternoon and check out at noon. Parking is free, and the Metra timetable is the thing to check before anything else, since it decides how a day in Chicago is shaped. With eighteen rooms, weekends around events at the country club and in the village go early.