[1][2] Reconceived in 2016,[3] it changed policy to welcome members regardless of race or gender, rent rooms to overnight guests, and host weddings and other events for nonmembers.

The need for such an establishment was felt as, in the burgeoning gold rush tent town of the time, there was little infrastructure and no suitable locale for distinguished visitors or pioneers to call in or be received at.

It is said that Cecil John Rhodes was walking along the newly laid-out Marshall's Township together with Dr Hans Sauer, the first District Surgeon of the Transvaal Republic; both of them stopped at the intersection of what is now Commissioner and Loveday streets, with Rhodes proclaiming that "this place will do for a club.” The first subscribers, who became the founding members, received two plots as a voluntary contribution and purchased two additional ones to ensure that the future building provided spacious facilities.

This quickly proved inadequate and this structure was demolished to make way for a double-story Victorian building, then deemed the finest in Johannesburg, with colonnaded verandas, trelliswork, French windows, and Corinthian pillars.

A notable feature is the specific incorporation of two half-moon wooden benches flanking the front doors, as by 1904 it was already an established tradition for some members to sit at the front and observe passing street life.The six-story building houses the longest bar in Africa, at 31 metres (103 feet), a billiards room, a private theatre, a double-volume staircase illuminated by a mosaic dome, two libraries, a ballroom, an armory, six conference rooms of various volumes, office space, and three bedrooms.

With a number of its members being published authors in their own right, the library has a separate section of works by Sir Lionel Phillips and Anthony Akerman, among others.