In 1898–1899, Kekushev won the first prize in the open contest for Hotel Metropol; financier Savva Morozov discarded the decision of a professional jury and awarded architectural design to William Walcot.

"None of this (Walcot's earlier) work is on the scale of the Metropole; Kekushev's assistance was probably crucial to the final realization of this complex structure, with its immense dome of glass and iron over an interior court" (Brumfield, chapter 3).

After the Russian Revolution of 1905, when public opinion "dismissed Art Nouveau as ephemera of fashion" (Brumfield, chapter 3) in favor of Neoclassical revival, Kekushev was unwilling or unable to change, and worked on low-profile, unimportant projects.

Maria Naschokina, a historian of Art Nouveau, suggested that Kekushev's withdrawal was actually caused by unspecified (probably, mental) illness; this statement has not been thoroughly proved.

The architect's son, Nikolay Kekushev, was a famous aviator who saw combat in 1924 in Central Asia, later working as aircraft engineer on Arctic flights in the 1920s and 1930s.