Drake Hotel Oak Brook voted one of the world’s best hotels by Conde Nast Traveler 2022 Readers’ Choice Awards

Winning awards isn’t new for the Drake Oak Brook Hotel.

But the recent news of being voted one of the best hotels in the world by Condé Nast Traveler, a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine published by Condé Nast, has taken the accolades to a new level.

The Drake Oak Brook Hotel was voted No. 2 in the Midwest, No. 11 in the United States and No. 47 in the world in the Condé Nast Traveler 2022 Readers’ Choice Awards.

“The other awards we have won have been exciting, but this one is really extra special because it’s the gold standard,” said Jim Nagle, who along with his wife, Tely, purchased the Drake in 2013 and reopened it two years later.

While the Nagles certainly are entitled to bask in the kudos for their hotel, Jim Nagle gives most of the credit to the approximately 120 employees who work at the Drake.

“Our team really is the reason for this,” he said. “We always have people who stay here commenting about their wonderful experiences with our team. You can have a beautiful hotel, but it really is having a great team that makes things special.”

The commitment to excellence from the Drake team likely stems from the loyalty the Nagles showed employees when the coronavirus pandemic shut the hotel industry down in March 2020, a month after the Drake Oak Brook Hotel received designation as part of the Autograph Collection, a group of independent upper-upscale to luxury hotels within the Marriott International portfolio.

“Everyone was telling us we should shut down and furlough everyone when the pandemic shut things down,” Jim Nagle said. “We shut down the hotel because we had to, but we kept our employees on and found other work for them.”

Most of that work involved a remodeling of the Drake.

“We had people doing all kinds of work they had never done before, but it kept them employed with their health insurance,” Nagle said. “I think it made everyone feel appreciated, which they are, and now they still feel part of our family.”

Nagle is particularly proud that the Drake has received recognition in a world that has many well-known, big city hotels in consideration.

The Drake was the winner as Top Hotel 2020 and again in 2022 in Illinois in the World Travel Awards. Other 2022 nominees were Four Seasons Hotel Chicago, Kimpton Hotel Monaco Chicago, Nobu Hotel Chicago, Pendry Chicago, The Langham, Chicago; The Peninsula Chicago, The Ritz-Carlton, Chicago; Viceroy Chicago; W Chicago — City Center and Waldorf Astoria Chicago.

“We’re virtually the only hotel with any of these awards that’s in a suburb,” Nagle said. “I think the big thing that separates us from other great suburban hotels is our outdoor space, which we’ve fixed up.”

The history of the Drake in Oak Brook goes back to its original opening in 1962. In 2009, the hotel fell prey to a Ponzi scheme, shutting the doors.

But the Nagles purchased the hotel from the Institute in Basic Life Principles, an Oak Brook-based organization that planned to use it for seminars and as a dormitory. Before that plan fell through, the hotel, which was then known as the Wyndham Drake Hotel, was a victim of the recession and other factors. A previous owner, an affiliate of Chicago-based investment firm Wextrust Capital LLC, purchased the hotel in 2008 for $20 million. Wextrust was later accused of operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme, according to a Chicago Tribune report. Both principals were sentenced to serve time in prison.

“It was always our goal and dream to get to the point where we could win an award from Condé Nast Traveler, but we didn’t think we’d get to this point this quickly,” Nagle said.

“There are a lot of great hotels out there, but at the end of the day, people make people happy. And that’s what our great team does every day.”

Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.