Kansas City’s original upscale hotel has a storied past—and a bright future.
By Toni Lapp
As Kansas City has evolved over the years, so has its premier luxury hotel: the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza, a property that began as the Alameda Plaza Hotel in 1972. The venue has changed names many times. In fact, one could mark the eras by the moniker that has appeared on the arc-shaped structure.
When longtime locals recall the Alameda Plaza Hotel, they remember the property that was painstakingly planned by Miller Nichols, son of urban planning guru and real estate developer, Jessie Clyde Nichols. The elder Nichols had created the blueprint for the Country Club Plaza in the 1920s with the idea that the shopping district would someday house a hotel.
When the luxury hotel opened to much fanfare in 1972, it quickly became an institution in the city. The venue beckoned in a new era for the Plaza by providing luxury accommodations in the city’s famed shopping district. In addition to attracting more upscale clientele to the area, the hotel also catered to residents by becoming the place not only where presidents and rock stars stayed, but also where local business leaders held meetings and couples exchanged wedding vows.
But even as the statue of the goddess Diana strikes a playful pose in a fountain on the property’s north side, radical changes have taken place inside.
The hotel has weathered more than one storm, including a flood in ’77 that forced a remodeling of several ground floor rooms.
“It’s been interesting,” says Beverly Alley, a server of 25 years who has seen a series of modifications wrought by a revolving door of brand changes. In her time, Alley has poured coffee for a host of celebrities and served local leaders power breakfasts in the Pam Pam West coffee shop, now the Oak Room. She says her fellow employees have become like family.
The property became a Ritz-Carlton in 1990, and the new management infused the building with Old World elegance, importing mahogany from Honduras, marble from Italy and chandeliers from Spain. The coffee shop was replaced with the Oak Room restaurant and a rooftop restaurant became a ballroom—now a popular destination from which to view the Plaza’s holiday lighting ceremony.
In 2000, the last of the Ritz-Carlton’s owners, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., sold the property to Maritz Wolff, which changed the hotel’s name to the Fairmont-Kansas City at the Plaza. Once again, renovations were made to put the new owner’s stamp on the building. This time, farm implements were used as objets d’art to keep with the Midwest setting, a theme that some in Kansas City felt was unbecoming to the elegant structure.
But with a $16 million restoration completed in November, the current ownership by the Procaccianti Group has restored the original elegance to the building with the intention of returning the hotel to its glory days as the crown jewel of Country Club Plaza. The renovation brought a fresh look to all 366 guestrooms and public spaces, including the Oak Bar and Oak Room restaurant. An exterior door has been added to the latter to provide better access to the public.
As with any renovation, the process was painful at times, says Bruce Gehring, director of sales and marketing. Midway into the project, the owners, designers and management met to discuss the renovations of the guestrooms.
“It was not the right feel,” Gehring says. “We wanted to reconnect with what the product was when it opened originally as the Alameda Plaza.”
Mission accomplished. The look of today’s hotel closely resembles the style of the vintage photographs that are displayed on the building’s ground floor. Pictures were hung on the walls to pay homage to the storied district that gave the hotel its home—hopefully one that it will have for many years to come.
BLUEPRINT FOR INSPIRATION
The InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza, formerly the Alameda Plaza Hotel, was the first upscale hotel on Country Club Plaza, a mix of office, retail and residential properties all in a beautiful setting replete with gardens, statues, fountains and Spanish architecture.
It all began decades earlier with Kansas City’s master of urban planning, Jessie Clyde Nichols. Recognizing the importance that traffic patterns would one day have on society, he had the vision to buy property on swampy land south of the city’s trolley lines. Nichols drew up plans for the outdoor shopping district—the first of its kind—in 1922. It wasn’t until after Nichols’ death that his son Miller acquired the land south of Brush Creek for a hotel.
Miller traveled far and wide studying architectural details of high-end hotels. A Los Angeles hotel inspired the curved exterior, a shape that better complements the plaza’s Spanish architecture, according to Aubrey Davis, the hotel’s project architect from Kivitt & Myers.
The design incorporated balconies with wrought iron to suggest a Mediterranean influence, while an exterior elevator—an innovation not seen in KC before—added modern flair. A team also traveled to Spain and Mexico to collect art and furniture for the hotel.
The construction of Alameda Plaza was a complete departure from anything the company had done before. Life-size models of the rooms were built in the J.C. Nichols Co.’s underground shops, where myriad details— from how the lights would work to how the bathroom doors should swing—were studied.
When the hotel was finally unveiled in 1972, it fulfilled a 30-year dream for Miller and heralded a new era for the Plaza.
In an interview with The Kansas City Star, Miller recalled the evening: “From north windows at night, the Plaza looked like a European city, and at dawn, the sunrise cast a pink hue on the buildings. It was beautiful and I’m sentimental.”
He also mentioned advice he had received from a family friend: “Don’t ever build a hotel.” He continued: “I hope it’s a good thing for Kansas City and the company that I didn’t take that advice.” If only he knew.
