The Sheridan Shore Yacht Club opened in Wilmette Harbor during the 1920s. The club was housed in a space on the lower floor of the Marshall Mansion (architect Benjamin Marshall's opulent residence and studio), which sat along Sheridan Road on the south side of the harbor. Marshall had allowed the club to be located in his mansion as a compromise with the village. The village had previously been unwilling to rezone the property to permit him to house his commercial offices there. As a result, Marshall had been unable to get a building permit for the home. Marshall made an offer to members of the headquarterless organization, he would let them house their headquarters in the basement of the studio if they could convince the village to issue a permit. Soon afterwards, the village was convinced to issue a permit allowing for the construction of a "clubhouse-studio". Marshall constructed his forty-room pink-stucco Spanish Colonial Revial mansion from 1922 until 1924 and decorated it with rare art and furniture. It was said to have cost somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000 to construct. The house was built into a bluff so that only one of its three stories was visible at street level. The residence featured an enclosed tropical greenhouse with a swimming pool and a Chinese temple room featuring a 500-year-old mandarin bed (the Chinese temple room was said to have cost $87,000). also had an Egyptian solarium that featured a table which rose through the floor, rising up from a butler's pantry beneath it. The houses furnishings included a tapestry which Louis XIV once presented to Madame de Pompadour. It was one of the North Shore's most extravagant residences.