Now and then, Glen Tullman revives some of the magic act he learned growing up in New Jersey, earning $5 a gig. It doesn’t always go well. Like the time a few years back when a colleague asked for a show at his son’s birthday party. Tullman tried the one where you crack an egg over a spectator’s head and, somehow, nothing drips out.
“It dripped all over the child’s head and he started crying.” Tullman said, amused by the memory. “He didn’t stop until I gave him my wand.”
Tullman, a 66-year-old health care entrepreneur, blames a lack of practice. But for his next trick he will attempt a stunt that is vastly more audacious and can’t be rehearsed. With $50 million of his own money, he is about to open a 35,000-square-foot mansion of magic in downtown Chicago.
The new venue, called The Hand and the Eye, will feature five performance spaces, seven bars, two dining rooms and one wall that, when touched, will seem to have a beating heart. The place will feed and entertain as many as 350 guests over the course of any given night, on five floors, with a rotating roster of 22 magicians to keep them all astonished.
It’s a deluxe fun house in a Gilded Age manse, one that has been renovated from the studs up by David Rockwell, the architect behind restaurants such as Union Square Cafe and Nobu as well as set designs for dozens of on and Off Broadway productions. Every detail has been fabricated for close-up magic — the interactive, right-under-your-nose variety — from the sightlines of the seats to the drinking glasses, which are the ideal width for a playing card.
One recent afternoon, workers were running through a punch list of final touches, laying carpet, unwrapping chairs, cinching down bolts. Each room, nook and theater has its own look, with rich shades of turquoise, emerald green and crimson red, plus bespoke chandeliers, velvet armchairs and patterned wallpaper. The gestalt is an updated version of jazz age opulence that never tilts into period-piece kitsch. It’s like stepping into a Cole Porter song, filled with highballs and intrigue.
This lush production might be history’s most ambitious bet on magic, which is having a bit of a renaissance. And it is funded by a man with a net worth estimated at $480 million, whose top priority is not padding his fortune.
“He said to me, ‘Bre, I don’t want you to worry about the revenue,’” said Bre Smith, who is in charge of hospitality and whose background includes stints at the Ritz-Carlton. “I want you to worry about the experience.”
During an interview on a plush, hazel-toned sofa on the first floor, Tullman was unabashed about the scale of his aspirations. He is creating nothing less than “a gift to Chicago,” as he put it, a destination that he hopes will land on every visitor’s list of must-sees in the city and keep a flow of locals coming, too.
And it just might. Unless he’s overestimated the public’s eagerness to spend $225 for a three-hour evening of magic, in theaters and spontaneous encounters in the bars, hallways and just about everywhere, along with a dinner of “approachable sophistication.” (There is no restaurant-only option.) Tullman knows the enterprise is a gamble, but during the interview he glowed like a teenager about to board a rocket he built with his bare hands.
“I’ve often said to people that either this will work or I will live in the nicest house in Chicago,” he said with a smile. “There is no in between.”
A Magic Renaissance
There are a lot of theories about the cause of the magic boom. Social media has boosted interest, by showcasing sleight-of-hand masters like Shin Lim and Jason Ledanye. “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” has introduced dozens of magicians to television viewers. Close-up magic invites repeat visits with a changing cast, a contrast to the long-running residencies favored by illusionists of the dry ice and tuxedo school.
Last year, the House of Magic opened outside Philadelphia, with a 103-seat jewel box theater built in a century-old former bank. Regulars say that the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, a Victorian-style club house with invitation-only performances, is thriving under new ownership. There are enough magic shows in New York City to see a different paid act every night for a month.
Tullman believes that people marooned in digital echo chambers now crave communal, off-line experiences, and everything about The Hand and the Eye is an antidote to the default settings of contemporary life. Starting with the dress code: No jeans, no sneakers. Collared shirts and jackets for men, cocktail dresses or “artfully styled” suits for women. Stickers will be placed on the cameras of mobile phones, preventing photos and videos. There are no windows to stare out of, no TVs to distract.
“Everything around you,” said Rockwell, offering a tour of the premises, “will be more interesting than scrolling on the phone.”
Upon arrival at the main entrance, visitors are ushered into a tiny, high-ceilinged room that is filled with small oak filing drawers, like the library card catalog in a Jorge Luis Borges story. There’s nothing else here, other than a black, 1920s-era telephone that sits on a plinth of green marble and wood. The phone rings. A woman’s voice provides instructions on what to do next.
The largest of the theaters is the Monarch Room, a 96-seater with blue velvet wall coverings and the only stage large enough for what’s called parlor magic; think vanishing bird cages and floating orbs.
On the smaller side there’s the Atelier, an elegant gift shop that sells beginner-level tricks, like the Vision Box (“you’ll know exactly what number they’ve chosen — without a word being spoken”), which are demonstrated and taught by pros.
Whimsical touches are embedded throughout. There’s a phone booth that operates like a human switching device. One person goes in, the glass door turns opaque, a different person walks out. (No spoilers.) A vast collection of magic memorabilia is on display, including a milk can that Houdini escaped from.
The food will be overseen by the Levy Group, a hospitality giant that runs upscale casual restaurants, like River Roast in Chicago, as well as concessions at arenas, like the Barclays Center and Wrigley Field. The restaurants here will be among the few magic-free zones. The designers concluded that guests don’t want interruptions while eating and might want a break. The rhythm of the night will be a show, followed by dinner, followed by another show, with time to linger at bars, where there’ll be more magic.
“I think people are going to want to just be here and enjoy a cocktail,” said Smith, the hospitality director. “Then you get to sprinkle magic on top.”
Magical Thinking
This is Tullman and Rockwell’s second attempt at a magic-themed venue. Magic Underground was slated to open in Times Square in 1998, with David Copperfield as the creative lead. A multi-floor building was near completion when the principal bankroller, the insurance and finance giant Conseco, pulled out. Tullman was deeply disappointed.
“The primary thing that didn’t work was financing,” Tullman recalled. “So I said, ‘Next time, I will finance it personally.’”
He and Rockwell have been friends since the early ’90s, when Tullman sought advice as he and a group of investors brought to life Michael Jordan’s first restaurant in Chicago. Both of them, they soon realized, had been young magic geeks in New Jersey who spent allowance money at Louis Tannen’s, a Manhattan magic emporium that thrives today as Tannen’s Magic Shop. Rockwell sent away for blueprints of stage illusions, including the saw-a-lady-in-half trick, which he performed at a school show.
“She lived,” he said. “Magic was really the start of my interest in architecture and theater.”
As an 8-year-old, Tullman regularly took trains from Summit, N.J., by himself, to Tannen’s, where he learned from maestros. His act included doves, which his tolerant parents allowed him to keep in a hallway near his bedroom.
“You use the restroom in the middle of the night,” he recalled, “boy, those doves woke up the whole house.”
With a full head of brown and gray hair, Tullman looks like a sportscaster and dresses like an executive at an ideas festival in Aspen. He is deeply earnest when he talks about his work and self-deprecating and boyish the rest of the time.
After graduating from Bucknell, he won a scholarship to Oxford and turned to the business of health care in the late ’90s. When his then-8-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, the anxiety and effort of tracking his blood sugar level provided the idea for Livongo, a tech platform that uses an app and customized hardware to coach and monitor people with chronic conditions. In 2020, it sold for $18.5 billion.
He has three grown children, who say he’s long combined intensity with a goofball streak. His daughter, Cayley Tull, recalled her father starting a water fight years ago, in a car, as the family waited for a ferry.
“My mother is a saint,” she said.
He also has an innate, die-hard optimism. At his 40th birthday party, a friend and business partner, Robert Compton, started a toast by handing out glasses with “Glen’s world” on the side.
“The lenses were all rose tinted,” he said.
A Disneyland for Magic
Chicago became a magic capital during the Prohibition Era when Matt Schulien, the son of the owner of a speakeasy, pioneered a wisecracking variety of prestidigitation known as bar magic. Schulien would mix your drink then make a chosen card appear under your glass. Twice. He would also mercilessly mock the patrons, giving birth to a style of insult magic that endured, with audience-souring results.
The eight resident magicians of The Hand and the Eye say they will favor delight over ridicule. Toward the end of the tour, a few of them were sitting in the Coliseum, a golden-toned room with 32 seats. At 69, Michael Ammar is the éminence grise here, having performed for decades, including on Johnny Carson’s version of “The Tonight Show.”
Gali Novak, a 26-year-old from Australia, gushed about performing somewhere fine-tuned for magic, rather than a retrofitted restaurant or comedy club.
“All of these environments ask magicians to perform in imperfect conditions,” she said, “and those conditions really affect the level of astonishment.”
Magicians not affiliated with The Hand and the Eye are generally thrilled about it. The venue could do for magic, they say, what Disneyland did for theme parks — elevate it to premium standards. Worries about the place tend to focus on the dress code, which could put off many potential guests. The cost of the evening might dissuade others. Some say that a venue needing 22 magicians, 7 nights a week, could struggle with quality control.
“It’s a valid concern,” said Jamy Ian Swiss, author of “Preserving Mystery” and a founder of Monday Night Magic, a long-running show in Manhattan. “I’m not going to pass a judgment, but I would say only that magic is often underestimated as a craft.”
Tullman is unworried. He trusts his residents, and he’s certain that Chicago will once again become the nation’s mecca of magic. This isn’t a competition, though. He talks like a well-heeled benefactor whose goal is to raise the reputation of magic around the world. He hopes more grown-ups will indulge in the joy of pure bewilderment, something he’s been doing since his dove act days.
If that makes him a case of arrested development, fine. It’s true of everyone who never shakes off a love of magic.
“There’s a great story about a boy who is watching a magician,” Tullman said. “And the boy says, ‘When I grow up I want to be a magician, just like you.’ And the magician says, ‘Sorry, kid. You have to choose one or the other.’”
David Segal is a business reporter for The Times, based in New York.
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