The 10-story building at 1528 Locust Street has worn a lot of hats over the past century, and on Friday, August 28, the 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis is throwing itself a party to celebrate the anniversary of its very first one: a 1926 YMCA. The free event, called Party Like It’s 1926, doubles as a nod to the building’s 100th birthday and the third anniversary of the hotel’s own reopening as a contemporary art museum and boutique hotel.
According to St. Louis Magazine, the celebration invites hotel guests, neighbors, and the broader St. Louis community to explore the property’s historic spaces through guided tours, live music, and interactive art activities. The Renaissance Revival building was designed by St. Louis architects Louis LaBeaume and Eugene S. Klein, the same pair behind local landmarks like the Stifel Theatre, according to Historic Hotels of America. When it opened in 1926, the building housed two gymnasiums, a tile-clad lap pool, and 400 small sleeping rooms for YMCA residents.
From YMCA to Art-Filled Hotel
The hotel’s current life began in August 2023, when an adaptive-reuse redevelopment transformed the aging YMCA into a destination for art, dining, hospitality, and community, per the seed reporting. The project was managed by real estate firm NuovoRE with JLL serving as project manager and PWWG and Hufft handling architecture, according to JLL. Because the property sits on the National Register of Historic Places, the restoration had to meet National Park Service standards throughout.
That work earned civic recognition earlier this year: the Landmarks Association of St. Louis named the hotel a winner of its 2025 Most Enhanced Awards, an annual honor that spotlights developers and rehabbers who preserve the city’s architectural heritage. Today the hotel holds 173 guest rooms decorated with artwork from Missouri-based creators, including Carmon Colangelo, Collin W. Elliot, and Brandon Forrest Frederick, alongside 13,000 square feet of gallery space that stays open to the public free of charge 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, according to Russell Group Construction & Development.
What's Happening at the Party
Party Like It’s 1926 will feature guided tours of the property’s historic spaces from 5 to 8 p.m., including a stop at the Locust Street Athletic & Swim Club, which retains and restores the original 1926 YMCA tile lap pool in the basement as a full-service wellness facility for hotel guests and local members. Live jazz from the Hard Bop Messengers runs from 6 to 8 p.m., followed by a vinyl DJ set in the second-floor museum galleries from 8 to 10 p.m. Central Print will offer free interactive printmaking throughout the evening, and attendees can also follow self-guided conversation prompts tied to the hotel’s current exhibition, Dress Up, Speak Up: Regalia and Resistance.
The Hard Bop Messengers are a St. Louis-based jazz ensemble led by trombonist John Covelli, known for original compositions and hard-bop reimaginings of Grateful Dead songs and classic pop tracks, according to the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. Covelli has been active in the St. Louis jazz scene for nearly four decades and previously wrote the jazz opera Live at The Last Hotel. Central Print, meanwhile, is a nonprofit founded in 2014 by Eric Woods and now led by Director Marie Oberkirsch in Old North St. Louis, dedicated to preserving historic printing equipment after spinning off from The Firecracker Press, per Nine PBS.
Honoring a Longtime Mentoring Group
The party will also include a special presentation recognizing 100 Black Men of Metropolitan St. Louis, named as August’s community impact partner. The chapter was established in 1983 as one of five founding chapters of 100 Black Men of America, a national organization launched in New York City in 1963 that now encompasses more than 110 chapters focused on youth mentoring, education, and economic empowerment, according to 100 Black Men of America.
The current exhibition being spotlighted during the self-guided tours, Dress Up, Speak Up: Regalia and Resistance, runs through June 2027 and includes more than 80 contemporary artworks by artists exploring identity, costume, and social protest, including Ebony G. Patterson, April Bey, Damon Davis, Yowshien Kuo, Yvonne Osei, and Jeffrey Gibson, according to 21c Museum Hotels.
Booking the Anniversary Stay
For those who want to make a night of it, the hotel is offering a $192.60 anniversary room rate for Friday night, which includes a bottle of Cava, with reservations available directly through 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis at 1528 Locust St. The chain itself dates back to 2006, when it was founded in Louisville, Kentucky, by art collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson to spur urban renewal; the brand was acquired in 2018 by global hospitality group Accor under its Ennismore portfolio, according to Wikipedia. The St. Louis property represented the chain’s tenth hotel opening nationally.
