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 Coates House Hotel - Kansas City, Missouri Posted by:  iconions
N 39° 06.135 W 094° 35.290
15S E 362672 N 4329324
The Coates House Hotel is located at 1005 Broadway and was the scene of a famous fire on January 28, 1978.
Waymark Code: WMWAVZ
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 08/04/2017
Views: 0
The Coates House Hotel is a former hotel at 1005 Broadway in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, on the National Register of Historic Places. Also known as the New Coates House Hotel, it was built in 1889–1891 incorporating parts of an earlier hotel, which had been built in the late 1860s as the Broadway Hotel and then become the Coates House after a change in ownership. In 1978, when it had become primarily single-room occupancy for transients, it burned in the deadliest fire in the city's history. It was subsequently restored and is now an apartment building.
Coates had died in April 1887. Beginning in 1888, his widow and family demolished the original hotel and rebuilt it on the same site as the New Coates House Hotel, while enlarging Coates' addition. President Benjamin Harrison stayed in the addition in 1890, before rebuilding was complete. The new hotel opened on January 10, 1891. This building, the northern section of which survives, was designed by Van Brunt & Howe; it has six stories and is of brick with stone ornamentation and stone courses on the upper floors, and white-painted stone with brick courses on the first floor. A balcony extends across each of the two main facades, on Broadway and 10th Street. The building originally had a crenellated parapet inscribed with "Coates House" on both main facades, and turrets or belvederes at the corners; these have been removed, as have the chimneys. It originally formed a rectangle around a central courtyard; the four-story east side, which housed services such as laundry and storage and rooms for employees, was later mostly demolished, leaving a U-shaped building.
The new hotel had a marble main staircase and offered services including a barber shop, a florist's, a bonnet shop, and Turkish baths. It remained a prestigious hotel for several decades; guests after the reopening included Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, Edwin Booth, William Jennings Bryan, and Oscar Wilde. It was nicknamed "the hotel of the presidents".
On January 28, 1978, by which time it was in disrepair and primarily occupied by transients and the elderly at $12–17 a week, the hotel was burned out in a fire that started at about 4:00 am in a room in the south wing. There were approximately 140 residents; more than 100 people were left homeless, and 20 were killed, mostly by jumping from upper floors to escape the fire. As of 2014 it remains the deadliest fire in Kansas City.
Historic Kansas City Foundation bought the ruined building in July 1979. In 1984 McCormack Baron Salazar, a developer based in St Louis, bought it and restored it as middle- and high-income housing; the company has also redeveloped many other sites in Quality Hill. The exterior renovation was completed in 1987, and in 2009 the plaque commemorating Kersey Coates was returned to the building.
There are reports that the building is haunted.
- Wikipedia Entry
The Coates House Hotel is an example of a late nineteenth century, urban hotel exhibiting the use of contemporary design systems and luxury features. The original hotel on the site was completed in the late 1860's. It was enlarged, 1886-1887, by the addition of a south wing. The original building was then replaced, 1889-1891. This description is of the final building consisting of the 1886-1887 and 1889-1891 portions.
Present Appearance
1. Over-all dimensions: The building is 220 feet long on the Broadway (Primary facade west) side and 142 feet on the 10th Street (north)side. It is six stories high, and has a light well on the east side giving the building a "U" plan.
2. Foundations: The foundations are brick at the south end and possibly stone at the north end. (If future research reveals that the foundations are stone, they are reused foundations from the earlier Coates House Hotel, demolished).
3. Wall construction, finish and color: Red, pressed brick with stucco-faced limestone belt courses was employed in the upper walls. Stone (painted white) alternating with seven courses of brick was used in the walls at the first story level. Ornamental stone insets appear between the windows of the fifth and sixth story windows, and another continuous course of stone forming the sills of the sixth story windows. Moulded brick in a checkered, square and ball, pattern differentiates the upper most portion of the wall above the sixth story windows, from the lower wall. A cornice of molded sheet metal divides the lower four floors from the two uppermost floors.
4. Structural system, framing: The hotel has brick bearing walls, and a metal column and beam structure for the interior support. This construction method was a contemporary fire-resistant system.
5. Porches: There is a balcony across the primary (Broadway) and secondary (10th Street) facades at the second floor level. The balcony is supported by ornate iron brackets and is rimmed by a sheet metal moulding. In front of the main entrance the balcony widens into an entrance porch and is supported by four cas£ iron pillars.
6. Chimney: Chimneys presently appear only at the rear of the building. One is a free-standing stack at the center of the rear "U".
7. Openings:
a. Doorways: The main entrance is on the west side. A secondary entrance is on the north. Tertiary entrances from the streets and from the east and south alleys open into shop spaces, and service areas.
b. Windows: Fenestration provides the salient exterior feature. Double-hung windows, regularly spaced in bays running through the second to sixth stories occur in groups 2, 3, and 4 bays wide between projecting polygonal and rectangular bay windows. The projecting bays occur at the corners of the two street facades and are ranged along these two facades paired at the midpoint of the north facade and dividing the west facade into equal fourths. Polygonal bays on the south facade occupy the second and fifth range of windows from the east end. The projecting bays are of wood construction, clad in heavy-gauge, ornamental, sheet metal. All windows have wood frames, and one pane of glass in each sash.
Windows at street level are the store front type.
8. Roof: The roof is apparently featureless and flat. This area was not examined.
- National Register Application Visit Instructions:
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