Its "State Dinners" (1893 menu at right below) are legendary fetes for scholars, artists and sculptors, collectors and connoisseurs, writers and journalists, and politicians and diplomats.

The Lotos Club's first home was at Two Irving Place, north of 14th Street near the Academy of Music and on the site of the Consolidated Edison Building.

It was at the Lotos Club in 1906 that George Harvey, editor of Harper's Weekly, sent up his first trial balloon by proposing Woodrow Wilson for the office of President of the United States.

[3] In 1909, with financial backing from Andrew Carnegie, the clubhouse was moved to 110 West 57th Street, in a building designed by architect Donn Barber.

The objectives of this institution shall be to promote and develop literature, art, sculpture, music, architecture, journalism, drama, science, education and the learned professions, and to that end to encourage authors, artists, sculptors, architects, journalists, educators, scientists and members of the musical, dramatic, and learned professions in their work, and for these purposes to provide a place of assembly for them and other persons interested in and sympathetic to them, and their objectives, effort and work.The Lotos Club issues a Medal of Merit; previous recipients include general David Petraeus, scientist James D. Watson, flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, and puppeteer Bil Baird.