Speakeasy-Style Lounge Coming To Dole Mansion Basement

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL — A new entertainment option will soon be coming to Crystal Lake.

The Listening Room at the Dole Mansion has been around for more than a decade but since the beginning of the year, organizers have been hosting pop-up music shows and re-inventing the space as a speakeasy-style music lounge, Erin McElroy, chief relations office for the Dole, told Patch. The lounge, which is located in the basement of the Dole Mansion and is called the Listening Room, will officially open to the public in the fall and will be renamed "Lou's."

The upgrades are meant to commemorate, and are inspired by, the 100-year anniversary of Eliza "Lou" Ringling's purchase of the mansion. She then went on to found the Crystal Lake Country Club, which became a mainstay for local residents during the Roaring 20s.

“We are in the garden level of a 1926 building, so we channelled a vintage, vignette lounge feel,”McElroy told the Northwest Herald. “We want people to feel like they’ve been transported to one of the great little historic music venues in Chicago, but in McHenry County.”

Read more on the Northwest Herald