Chicago just built the largest magic venue in the world—take a peek inside

FastCompany: The last time I set foot in this historic Chicago mansion built in the heart of Michigan Avenue, I’d been served one less-than-generous slice of lukewarm prime rib. This is back when it was a Lawry’s steakhouse. I remember white tablecloths, silver serving trays, one decent staircase, and just the stodgiest of old rooms that felt less like I was in the Gilded Age than at a funeral parlor. Now, when I step inside the lobby, a large wooden door slides open in front of me. I enter a room with a ringing telephone. And when I pick it up, my journey begins . . .

With the help of the architecture firm Rockwell Group and the design firm Pentagram, the McCormick mansion has been transformed into The Hand & The Eye , the largest magic venue in the world at 35,000 square feet. [Photo: Matthew Reeves/courtesy The Hand & The Eye] The overall vision—and $50 million investment behind it—comes from Glen Tullman, who is both a Chicago-based venture capitalist and a lifelong magic enthusiast.

His bet is that locals and tourists will spend $225 for a three-hour, no-cameras-allowed experience (with $75 in credits for food and drink) as they bounce from intimate rooms to larger theaters—seeing more magic at every turn in a setting that’s as much of a spectacle as the illusions themselves. “We built this to be a 100-year venture from every little aspect of what we’ve done,” says Tullman, as he excitedly gives me a tour through the space. “We built it to be for the performers and for the guests.

We didn’t build it to say, ‘Let’s maximize profits.’ [Though] sometimes when you do that, you actually maximize profits, because people say, ‘This is so special.’” What is The Hand & The Eye? The Hand & The Eye is a theater, club, school, and networking spot for the magic-inclined. But ultimately, it’s an ode to mid-century Chicago-style magic: point-blank, reality-shattering card tricks that filled the city’s taverns as magicians walked from table to table, casually blowing people’s minds with nothing more than 52 small pieces of waxed paper.

The mansion is designed to transport you out of any particular place and time, with a mishmash of motifs pulled from the 1870s to 1930s, the golden age of magic. Rich wallpapers, marble bars, careful carpentry, custom brass plaques, and copious amounts of fringe and velvet serve as a baseline across a space where no two rooms are alike. And since the mansion has few windows, it feels like a permanent 10:30 p.m. inside. I can see how the environment could make time disappear. The careful ode to magic never feels like kitsch, largely due to the fact that, ironically, most of what you’re looking at is real.

This isn’t an escape room or some Disneyland ride. A mix of antique and custom-built furniture fills the space, and a museum’s worth of art and ephemera are staged everywhere you look—ranging from one of Harry Houdini’s milk cans (he’d lock himself inside and escape from the roughly 36-by-26-inch steel churn) to Alexander Herrmann’s “Chinese rings” and decapitation cloth. Many are sourced right from Tullman’s own collection. [Photo: Matthew Reeves/courtesy The Hand & The Eye] Both the space and service are architected to create an unpredictable night.

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