United States · Missouri · Kansas City
Country Club Plaza, Kansas City — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Country Club Plaza opened in 1923 as the first planned outdoor suburban shopping center in the United States, built for shoppers arriving by car.
About Country Club Plaza
Where to stay in Country Club Plaza
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The Plaza is an outdoor shopping ground first, and the hotels stand against the storefronts. A room on the Country Club Plaza puts The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the open-air shopping streets at the door, which is the trade for a district built around car traffic that thins out once the shops shut. Hotel stock follows the Plaza.
Stay here if you want the museums and the shops on foot; the Country Club District blocks behind, with listed houses like the Bernard Corrigan House, swap that for lawns and a longer walk back.
About Country Club Plaza
What are the main landmarks in Country Club Plaza?
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is the heavyweight on the district roster. Beside it the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Toy and Miniature Museum give the area three collections, while the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site keeps the painter's own house and workshop as a state site. Then the Country Club District houses.
The Bernard Corrigan House, the Epperson House, the Tom Pendergast House and the Reverend Nathan Scarritt Home carry the domestic half of the record, and Mineral Hall and the Community Christian Church round it out.
What is the history of Country Club Plaza?
The Country Club Plaza opened in 1923 inside the Country Club District of Kansas City, Missouri. The Plaza was built for cars. Reckoned the first planned large outdoor suburban shopping center in the United States, and among the first regional centers arranged for shoppers who arrived by car rather than on foot, it is a commercial development held in private ownership rather than a civic quarter that grew of its own accord.
The Reverend Nathan Scarritt Home and the Westminster Congregational Church carry older Kansas City names on the same district roster.
Where is Country Club Plaza?
Country Club Plaza lies in the Country Club District of Kansas City, Missouri, out beyond the old downtown and laid out as suburban ground from the start.
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Updated September 2026