Before
The room in 2010, when it was called the Sawyer Room, before the latest restoration.
From the 2010 photo essay "One Ballroom, Many Lives," used with permission [confirm credit wording]
History · The Kansas City Athletic Club, 1923
A century on Eleventh.
Built as the Kansas City Athletic Club and opened on September 1, 1923. Hotels, offices and a hundred years later, its ballroom is still here.
It almost became an office building
Plans for a new Kansas City Athletic Club clubhouse began in 1917. Then came the war, a stalled steel frame and a foreclosure, and the buyers considered turning the tower into offices.
The club made a counteroffer: recruit 3,000 members at $200 each. It worked. The club celebrated with a banquet where a copy of the financing guarantee was burned, and when the doors opened on September 1, 1923, 3,144 membership applications were already in hand.
That same year, the Architectural League of Kansas City gave the building its medal, credited to Hoit, Price and Barnes.
By the numbers
1923
Opened September 1
3,144
Member applications at opening
100 × 55
Feet, two stories, no columns
1983
National Register of Historic Places
Two stories. No columns.
The club's banquet room was designed as a single open hall, 100 by 55 feet and two stories tall, with no interior columns in the way. The building around it is Late Gothic Revival, in brick and stone.
Its tall art-glass windows carried athletic-club insignia, including the KCAC's blue diamond. Today's ballroom keeps the ornamented ceiling, the chandeliers, the terrazzo floor, the windows and the Juliet balcony.
After
The same balcony today. The Century Club, resurrected.
A century, in order
1893
The club takes its name
The Fairmount Cycling Club, founded in 1887, becomes the Kansas City Athletic Club.
1917
A clubhouse is announced
Plans for a KCAC clubhouse on the site of the fire-damaged Willis Wood Theater, at 11th and Baltimore.
1923
The doors open
September 1, after war delays, a foreclosure and a membership drive that saved the project.
1925
The band strikes up
Billboard books Charles Dornberger and His Victor Record Orchestra at the club, starting May 1.
1938
The Continental Hotel
After a stint as the Hotel Kansas Citian from 1933, the tower becomes the Continental, and its ballroom hosts decades of banquets, balls and conventions.
1972
Science fiction under the chandeliers
The Mid-America Con banquet fills the Grand Ballroom, with Philip José Farmer and James Gunn among the speakers.
1976
A presidential visit
On August 18, during the Republican National Convention, President Ford and Vice President Rockefeller attend a reception at the Continental.
1983
A national landmark
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 8, as the tower turns to offices as the Mark Twain Tower.
2019
The restoration begins
The Bernstein Companies and Aria Development Group start turning the tower into The Mark, 222 apartments around a preserved ballroom.
2023
The Century Club
The ballroom hosts again as The Century Club, run by Skyline & Co., and The Mark celebrates its centennial on July 27.
2024
Honored, in the room itself
Historic Kansas City names The Mark a Best Adaptive Re-Use, at an awards night held at The Century Club.
From the archive
A century of photographs, postcards and plans, from Kansas City's own collections.
The Continental, 1941
Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library
11th and Baltimore
Kansas City Public Library
The block, mapped
Fire insurance map of 11th and Baltimore, the Continental still marked "Athletic Club." [Confirm year and collection]
the next hundred years
Add your night to the story.