Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin brand has announced its first hotel location in Chicago.

The long-awaited Virgin Hotels name, expected to tie in with existing Virgin travel offers such as Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America, has purchased the Old Dearborn Bank Building, a 27-storey structure and Chicago landmark.

Designed in 1928, the Art Deco building is currently used as office space, but will be converted to a hotel and reopened in 2013 as the Virgin Hotel Chicago.

Richard Branson on Monday opened the world’s first-ever commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert, the new home for his company, Virgin Galactic.

The eccentric businessman inaugurated the building by breaking a champagne bottle against a hanger building, while rappelling down the side of it.

“Spaceport America” awill serve “as the operating hub for Virgin Galactic and is expected to house up to two WhiteKnightTwos and five SpaceShipTwos, in addition to all of Virgins astronaut preparation facilities and mission control.”

British business magnate Richard Branson hopes to launch a vessel into space within the next 12 months, kicking off an era of commercial space travel.

“The mother ship is finished… The rocket tests are going extremely well, and so I think that we’re now on track for a launch within 12 months of today.”

“This could be the beginning of a whole new era of space travel, which will be commercial space travel,” he told CNN’s Piers Morgan late Wednesday.

Described as an underwater aircraft, the Necker Nymph comes in tandem with the Necker Belle, Branson’s catamaran on the high seas.

But the Nymph allows boaters to get low, flying underneath the water to depths of 30 meters (98 feet). Helmed by a trained pilot, it soars at a speed of 6 knots (7 mph).

Dives typically last from one to two hours and passengers wear normal scuba breathing gear.

Kate Winslet and members of Richard Branson‘s family escaped unharmed Monday when a lightning storm hit the Virgin tycoon’s Caribbean island home, which was destroyed in a blaze.

Winslet carried Branson’s 90-year-old mother Eve out of The Great House on Necker Island as the flames took hold in the early hours of the morning.

“She (Winslet) was staying there with her children and in fact it was she who carried my mother out of the house,” Branson told Britain’s ITV News.

Holidaymakers can now rent Sir Richard Branson‘s private leisure haven, Makepeace Island, located 20 minutes from Noosa in Queensland, Australia.

Once a muddy patch of land floating in the Noosa River, this 9.2 hectares heart-shaped island has been transformed into an ultra-luxurious Balinese-style retreat.

Since buying Makepeace in 2007, Branson’s reserved his Balinese-style retreat for private parties with friends and staff.