Kansas City Club Story

It all started with this awning.  The Kansas City Club.  I started researching and fell down a rabbit hole.                  

                                        

The Kansas City Club, founded in 1882 and downtown Kansas City, was the oldest gentlemen's club in Missouri. The club began admitting women members in 1975.   Notable members have included Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley and political boss Tom Pendergast.  The club closed in 2015.  

In 1922, the Kansas City Club built a new clubhouse.

A beautiful 14 story building.

 The clubhouse included a large dining room, several bars, private meeting rooms, a banquet hall, athletic facilities, an indoor pool, six floors of guestrooms, and a rooftop terrace.

  It remained the clubhouse until 2001, when the club merged with a nearby smaller club. In 2002, a developer bought and renovated the building. The first six floors were a banquet facility called The Clubhouse on Baltimore. The remaining nine floors were converted to loft apartments

In 2020, the building was relaunched as Hotel Kansas City. The first five floors were preserved in original condition and are meeting and event spaces.

Now back to the club.

The 1922 building remained the club house until the club agreed to merge with the University Club, a 100-year-old men's social club.

They moved to the University Club building.

I'm trying to show the U and C.

Ten alumni of six colleges and universities met in November of 1900 to form the University Club. . After the building they were meeting in was destroyed by fire in 1923, construction of a building was begun and was completed the following year.

After 133 years, the Kansas City Club closed on Saturday, May 23, 2015.  Epoch Developments, from Denver, bought the facility out of bankruptcy in mid-2015 and spent millions of dollars renovating, improving, upgrading the systems, and returning the facility to use as a private venue.

While doing research for this post I found that one of the TV stations did a story in May 2024 about the building being for sale.  It is not listed on realtor or zillow so I can not confirm that or get a price.

This twisted story should be over but it continues.

The 822 Club was founded in room 822 of the Kansas City Club in about 1927. Its main purpose was probably to provide its members an opportunity to evade the prohibition laws in congenial surroundings. Truman was often invited and was given honorary life memberships in both the Kansas City Club and the 822 Club shortly after he became President. 

The 822 Club apparently meant quite a lot to Truman. He invited club members to come to the Truman Library on April 9, 1957 for a tour of the almost completed building, and he invited them to a dinner held in the Library's research room on April 18, 1959.

That is almost the end of the story.

I needed shots of the 1922 building for this post.

It was raining today and this is me.

During the winter especially I try to keep one post ready to go in case of ice or snow.  I did walk around a get more than just pictures of the 1922 building.

I hope you enjoyed the story of The Kansas City Club.