Pendennis Club
The Pendennis Club is a private social club located at 218 West Muhammad Ali Blvd. (formerly Walnut Street) in Louisville, Kentucky. It originated as a gentlemen's "city" club on the model of the clubs in London, Britain, of which White's Club founded in 1693 is the progenitor. The Pendennis Club has long been regarded as the preeminent social club in Kentucky and one of the premier clubs in the United States.
Founding
The Pendennis Club was founded by Thomas Wilson Todd (1852-1892), Levi Bloom (1854-1944), John Smith Noyes (1842-1922), and William Whits Hite (1854-1908) who, with sixteen others, hosted a preliminary meeting for starting the club in Mr. Todd's office in Louisville City Hall on June 28, 1881.
Two organizational meetings, on 9 July & 10 August 1881, took place in the club's first home consisting of rented space over A. J. Ross's Grocery Store, located in a building at the southwest corner of 4th and Walnut Streets–which is the site of the present Seelbach Hotel (built 1905). The Club's first president Maj. John Montgomery Wright (1841-1915) was elected at the latter meeting. He was a graduate of West Point, a Union veteran of the Civil War, and later served as Clerk of the United States Supreme Court.
Also at that meeting, the members adopted a proposal to name the club for the fictional Arthur Pendennis, who was seen as a paradigm club man, from William Makepeace Thackeray's History of Pendennis: His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy (published 1850). Arthur Pendennis's crest, which was described but not depicted in this novel, and the motto nec tenui penna (meaning "with unfailing wings") were adopted for the club as well. By year's end, the crest had been rendered and was placed on bottles of Kentucky Bourbon sold to the Club's members.
Notable Events
The Pendennis Club has been the venue for numerous debutante presentations and parties along with other major social events of the year.
Periodically since at least 1941, the Pendennis Club has hosted a stag boxing night–with a boxing ring set up in the Club's grand Georgian ballroom. On February 19, 1960, then Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) participated in this event, in which he scored a third-round technical knockout over Ronnie Craddock, whom he had also just beaten in the recent Golden Gloves heavyweight final. Later that year, he participated in the Olympics and turned professional. His participation in the Club's event is not surprising since at least five of the eleven Louisville men who sponsored him in his early years were Club members.
That was not the only notable event in the Club's ballroom as it was the setting for the "Belmont Ball" scene in the 2010 Disney movie Secretariat on October 9, 2009.
Numerous Club events have long accompanied the annual running of the Kentucky Derby. Various celebrities and royalty have been guests at the Club for these events, including at its very popular Post Derby Party on the night of the race.
See also
- Gentlemen's club
- List of American gentlemen's clubs
- List of Australian gentlemen's clubs
- List of London's gentlemen's clubs
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