In its prime, the Mount Royal was Canada's most prestigious club and was an integral part of Montreal's Golden Square Mile society.

During the age when Montreal was the center of commerce in Canada, the club's membership counted many of the country's most powerful executives, bankers, financiers, and industrialists.

The club purchased the former Sherbrooke Street home of Sir John Abbott, Canada's third prime minister, to use as its clubhouse.

[2] In a 2013 article in Maclean's describing the fall of Canada's old establishment, Newman cited a 1993 event at the Mount Royal Club as marking the death of this class.

In Newman's words, "thus died the Canadian Establishment—at the Mount Royal Club, vaporized by cigar smoke and Yankee slang.