2 Best Sights in Chicago, Illinois

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this opulent clubhouse on Lake Michigan is one of the last remaining Mediterranean resort–style buildings in the Midwest. The posh country club looks like something out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. It boasts meeting rooms, horse stables, a 9-hole golf course, beach, and an art gallery. With magnificent crystal chandeliers, balconies, pillars, and a vaulted ceiling, its ballrooms and grand lobby wow visitors, including President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, who chose the center for their wedding reception. Referred to by many as the "Gem of the Southside," it is also the home of the South Shore Cultural School of the Arts.

The tan brick building, designed by Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1949, was named for nearby Promontory Point, which juts out into the lake. Mies's first residential high-rise exemplifies the postwar trend toward a clean, simple style. Even from street level, the Lake Michigan views here are breathtaking. Note the skylines and belching smokestacks of Gary and Hammond, Indiana, to the southeast.