The first hotel on the site, at 10th Street and Broadway, was designed in 1857 by John Johnson, an English architect who later became the third mayor of Kansas City, as part of the development of former farmland owned by Kersey Coates that later became the neighborhood of Quality Hill; at the time it was ten blocks south of downtown.

[1][2] Beginning in 1886, Coates added a new wing at the south end; President Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances stayed there in October 1887.

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.

[6] On January 28, 1978, by which time it was in disrepair[1] 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 am in a room in the south wing.

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.