Nine years ago, as Amy McCormack began her tenure as president of Calumet College of St. Joseph, an official warned her not to be “seduced” by a long-abandoned former lounge area perched atop the seventh floor of the Smidt Building.
She didn’t listen.
“I didn’t see the falling ceiling tiles, asbestos, taped-up windows… what I saw was how amazing this space could be.”
On Thursday, the public got its first glimpse of the former Standard Oil art deco executive lounge after its transformation into a public gathering space with help from a $15 million Lilly Endowment grant in 2024, as well as sponsors including the BP Whiting refinery, the Schmetterling Foundation, the Migliorini Family, the Hasse Family Foundation, Jeff and Amy McCormack, Nancy Wheeler and Cleveland-Cliffs.
The Lilly grant aimed to draw communities and colleges closer together. The seventh floor will be available for college students, community meetings and private rentals in the fall.
On that first visit, McCormack saw a U-shaped shag carpeted bar where Standard Oil execs once sipped afternoon cocktails with their eyes trained on the refinery.
An old console TV from the 1950s sat near a kitchenette that featured metal cabinets. Executives needed a key to enter the lounge. Chicago architects Holabird & Root designed the building’s elevators to only go to the sixth floor, so executives had to hike up a floor via an emergency stairwell.
After McCormack snipped a red ribbon, attendees entered the renovated lounge that will soon contain historical details of Northwest Indiana’s industrial oil, water, steel and railroad roots. It can seat about 96 people.
About 50 guests viewed a renovated area including a small lobby and a hospitality hub. Industrial photos provided by Calumet College grad Pete Doherty, Matthew Kaplan and the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society dotted the walls.
The penthouse lounge is surrounded by a 3,700-square-foot concrete terrace offering panoramic views of Chicago’s skyline, Lake Michigan and the residential and industrial landscape of Whiting and Hammond.
Standard Oil donated its former research and development building to Calumet College in 1973.
While the Smidt building on the Hammond campus came alive with classrooms, offices and student spaces, the seventh-floor lounge remained shuttered and lost in time.
McCormack envisioned the space as an opportunity to show off the views and pay homage to the industries and their leaders who built the region, including John D. Rockefeller, who founded the Standard Oil Co. in 1880.
Rockefeller established the Whiting refinery in 1889 because of its proximity to Chicago. By the mid-1890s, the Whiting plant had become the largest refinery in the U.S. as Americans used oil to light their kerosene lamps.
By the 1920s, Standard Oil began turning crude oil into gasoline, and Rockefeller became a titan of the Gilded Age and is considered the first U.S. billionaire.
Officials plan an interactive touch screen explaining the region’s legacy, said Brian Lowry, vice president of institutional advancement.
The most challenging project for contractors was retrofitting the elevator equipment to reach the seventh floor, said Lowry.
The lounge is filled with small tables and chairs with views of a new spray-painted modernistic mural of St. Joseph the Worker on its east end by area artist Felix “Flex” Maldonado.
Lowry said the mural covers a new stairwell needed for the project.
Maldonado said he designed St. Joseph in a welding jacket as he mentors a young Jesus who wears a T-shirt with red stripes symbolizing blood shed on the cross, green representing eternal life and gold that marks kingship.
Elements of Calumet College’s seal include a dove carrying an olive branch and the lamp of learning.
Maldonado said the mural took about one year to complete.
“We had some pretty crazy weather,” he said of windstorms atop the seventh floor, which is about 100 feet high.
The new elevator wasn’t complete yet, so he trudged up a floor with his supplies.
Calumet College’s former golf coach George H. Topoll, who’s also the Union Township trustee in Porter County, looked amazed at the views from the terrace.
“I wanted to bring my team up here,” he said. “It looked like a great driving range.”
Scott Miller, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr.’s chief of staff, praised McCormack for her vision and for continuing the school’s mission.
“People go to school here to better their community,” he said.
McCormack said she began her career as an auditor on the 75th floor of the Standard Oil building in Chicago. “And now, it’s our 75th anniversary,” she said of Calumet College’s founding. “And we’re on the seventh floor.”
She’s hoping the project will boost the Calumet Heritage Partnership’s efforts to develop a federally recognized Calumet Heritage Area.
“We did not come this far to only come this far,” she concluded with the popular mantra.
Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
