The Coffee House

Some Notes About

T H E

C O F F E E

H O U S E

A PRIVATE CLUB

T OGETHER with the Rules of

The Coffee House, Rule Six

being that there shall be No Rules.

I NCLUDING such Depictions

of Past Events and Descriptions of

Future Events as seem warranted:

NEW YORK

20 West Forty-fourth Street, Sixth Floor

Telephone 391-5609

EMAIL The Coffee House

[Drawing by James Stevenson, 1965, for the
Golden Anniverary Dinner Menu]

A PLACE AT THE TABLE

By Heywood Hale Broun, Coffee House member since 1951; an address delivered at the annual New Members’ Dinner, October 29, 1996.

—Embedded in the long table is a silver design commemorating the Coffee House membership of Jo Mielziner. He was a distinguished stage designer, and nearly half a century ago created the settings for a Henry Fonda play called Point of No Return. In the cast of that play was an obscure actor in a part the very name of which best speaks its narrow scope: “The Second Bank Clerk.” That actor, nibbling at the outer edge of the theatrical pie, was me, and I was quite startled to receive a letter from Mielziner indicating that he wished to put me up for the Coffee House Club. I could not understand the eligibility of the failed son of a famous man, but quickly discovered that my sponsor saw me not as a failure or a success, but simply as one who might add a harmonious note to the conversational music of the round table.

—As the years passed and my career wound its chancy way, I realized that my place at the table meant more than my place on the ladder—that none of us was a success or a failure—all of us were simply Coffee House members, people devoted to agreeable, civilized conversation.

—You will, I am sure, remember those old fantasies about the weary traveler who, at twilight, takes a side road to a strangely antique inn and a lot of merriment among men in three-cornered hats and women in mobcaps. The traveler has the time of his life but, later, can never find the road or the inn again.

—The good thing about our magic inn is that West 45^th Street is easy to find and, though the hats are ordinary, the timeless ease and good cheer match any fourth dimension refuge.

THE COFFEE HOUSE PLAQUES

—G.K. Chesterton thought of heaven as “The Inn At the End of the World.” In my long years at the Coffee House, a lot of men and, more lately, women, have departed our table, leaving only merriment behind. Sydney Smith, the 19^th century clergyman who aspired to eat paté de foie to the sound of trumpets, which he considered a suitable entrance to the hereafter, thought of heaven as a march up a winding staircase to a place where a footman threw open a door to an eternal luncheon party.

—I hope there is somewhere out ahead of me an eternal Coffee House where I will meet Hoby Weekes, Nat Benchley, Paul Bonner, Jo Mielziner, and all the others who took me into a luncheon party sadly not eternal, but one where care never climbed the stairs.

—To you, new members, I extend the hope that your stay here will be as long and as happy as mine, and that everything will stay the same except the subject of conversation.

THE COFFEE HOUSE CLUB

Based on a speech by Ben Hall at our Golden Anniversary Dinner on December 8, 1965.

A Bit of History

—Unrecorded in the annals of the Knickerbocker Club is an event which might be called the Great Coffee House Rebellion. One day in January, 1914, two members of the Knickerbocker—Frank Crowninshield and Rawlins L. Cottenet—met for lunch at a midtown hotel and agreed that they were fed up to the tops of the Arrow collars with the Knickerbocker and its brass-buttoned flunkies, silver duck-presses, and gold-plated table conversation. According to Crowninshield’s recollections, they decided that “it would be agreeable and desirable to found a small dining club composed of such members of the Knickerbocker Club as had no sympathy with business or wealth or with such things that business and wealth produced or implied.”

—Endorsing this high-minded conspiracy was Henry G. Gray, and during the next few weeks the three defectors invited five other friends to join them: Cyril Hatch, Bertram Cruger, James Barney, Lydig Hoyt, and James B. Eustis. They called themselves The Foes of Finance Dinner Club and on February 5, 1914, held their first meeting, in the middle downstairs room of the old Brevoort House on lower Fifth Avenue.

—The Foes of Finance continued to meet more or less regularly during 1914 at such spots as the Café Lafayette, Oscar and Billy’s Chop House on Thirty-Sixth Street, Luchow’s, and The Knickerbocker Hotel. Their number was brought up to ten with the addition of Frederic Kernochan and Thomas Slidell.

—Some time in the fall of 1915 it became apparent that no more allies were to be recruited from the Knicker-bocker Club, and if the group were to increase it would have to start finding members elsewhere. Accordingly, a luncheon was held to discuss plans for a new club with permanent rooms of its own. Crowninshield’s vision, which he first articulated in a memorandum he had written in 1907, seems almost clairvoyant.

—“On a side street in the theatre district. Two hundred members. Up one flight. Club to be called the Beefsteak, or some similar name. One long dining table. Dues, $30 a year. Club to consist of one big room, one music room, and grill room. These rooms to open at one in the afternoon and close at midnight. No brokers or bankers and perhaps no drama critics. No card playing. The club to be for sculptors, artists, foreigners, illustrators, authors, editors, professors, sportsmen, lawyers, actors, singers, playwrights, musicians, inventors, composers, statesmen, judges, etc. Members to pay cash for everything. The club would be a revolt against the marble palace idea and would be very simple and cheap.”

—Thus was born The Coffee House, which for the next sixty-seven years was quartered in the Hotel Seymour, at 54 West 45^th Street. (The name “Coffee House” was decided on in the hope that the Club might take its character from the coffee houses which first appeared in London during the reign of Charles II, and had grown to such popularity by Queen Anne’s time that they were patronized by all the wits and talent of the town.) In 1982, demolition of the hotel began and the Club was required to move. Fortunately, another brownstone was found, just a few doors to the west at No. 70 on the same street. After extensive renovations of those premises, The Coffee House reopened in August 1983, with its accustomed furnishings refurbished and redeployed.

Candlesticks by Paul Manship
Foal by John Held, Jr.

Some Notes

The Customs of the Place

—The Constitution of The Coffee House is probably the most compact and sensible code of governance ever drafted by a social club. It consists of a half-dozen Commandments only:

No officers

No charge accounts

No liveries

No tips

No Set Speeches

NO RULES

—The Coffee House remains a social club, one in which members are expected to talk about their individual pursuits and interests but to refrain from spreading out business papers and signing documents.

Membership Procedures

—There are no formal applications for membership. The Coffee House merely invites men and women to join whom it believes to be in sympathy with its social aims. Any member who wishes to propose a friend for membership should write a letter to the Acting Secretary, giving the name, address, background, and qualifications of the candidate; have a seconding letter by another member sent as well; and should arrange for the candidate to be brought to lunch and introduced to the other members present that day. In the ordinary course of Club business, the sponsor should hear of the membership status of his or her candidate within a month’s time.

Reciprocating Clubs

—

Some Notes

Club Hours

—The Coffee House is open for lunch every day of the week, Monday through Friday, except for the following national holidays: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The Club is closed on weekends. Dinner may be available by arrangement with the chef. The Club is a splendid setting for cocktail parties, receptions, dinner parties, reunions, and similar events. For prices, menus, and dates call the chef directly.

Club telephone numbers: (212) 391-5609 office

(212) 840-7696 chef

Charges and Bills

—Members are expected to pay in cash (or by personal check) for the food and drink they and their guests consume at the Club. There are no weekly or monthly statements. At no time should any gratuity be offered to the staff, although a Christmas Fund is collected for their benefit.

SOME COFFEE HOUSE MEMBERS:
THE FIRST FOUR YEARS

·	Chester Aldrich		Avery Hopwood
	Frederick Lewis Allen		Rupert Hughes
·	Winthrop Ames	·	Fritz Kreisler
·	George Arliss		Walt Kuhn
	Robert Benchley		C. Grant LaFarge
	W.T. Benda		Stephen Leacock
	Guy Bolton		Nicholas Longworth
	Adolph Borie		George Lorimer
	Robert Bridges\	·	Guy Lowell
	Bliss Carman		Frederick MacMonnies
	Robert W. Chambers		Hartley Manners
	John Jay Chapman	·	Paul Manship
·	Joseph H. Choate		Don Marquis
	Winston Churchill		George Barr McCutcheon
	Irvin S. Cobb		Gari Melchers
	Royal Cortissoz		Samuel Merwin
	John Cross		Christopher Morley
·	Frank Crowninshield	·	Gouverneur Morris
	Walter Damrosch		CondÈ Nast
	Richard H. Dana, Jr.		Henry Fairfield Osborn
	Jo Davidson		Maxfield Parrish
	Arthur B. Davies		Maxwell Perkins
·	William Adams Delano		Charles A. Platt
	Charles Dillingham		John Russell Pope
	George H. Doran		Cole Porter
	John Drew		Charles Scribner
·	Finley Peter Dunne		Louis E. Shipman
	Douglas Fairbanks		Otis Skinner
	William Faversham		Julian Street
†	James L. Ford		Mark Sullivan
	Daniel Frohman		Deems Taylor
	John Gade		Charles Hanson Towne
·	Charles Dana Gibson		Pierre Troubetzkoy
	Ernest Glendenning		Ernest Truex
	Bertram Goodhue		Joseph Urban
	Ralph Graves		Hendrik W. van Loon
	Ben Ali Haggin		Walter Wanger
	Walter Hampden		Reinald Werrenrath
	Learned Hand	·	H. J. Whigham
	Childe Hassam		Ezra Winter
	Thomas Hastings		Owen Wister
	Oliver Herford		P. G. Wodehouse
	De Wolf Hopper		Efrem Zimbalist
	Herbert Hoover

• Indicates Founding Committee Member

† The only Honorary Member at time of his death in 1928

MORE FORMER MEMBERS

George Abbott	George Gershwin	St. Claire McKelway
Charles Addams	Wolcott Gibbs	Adolphe Menjou
Maxwell Anderson	Rube Goldberg	Burgess Meredith
Sherwood Anderson	Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd	Jo Mielziner
Joseph W. Alsop, Jr.	Alfred Harcourt	Robert Montgomery
George F. Baker	Sir Cedric Hardwicke	Edward R. Murrow
John Barrymore	Richard Edes Harrison	Ogden Nash
Bruce Barton	Leland Hayward	John O’Hara
Rex Beach	Jascha Heifetz	Eugene O’Neill
Lucius Beebe	James Heineman	Michael Powell
Norman Bel Geddes	John Held, Jr.	Tom Prideaux
Nathaniel Benchley	Leslie Howard	Basil Rathbone
Stephen V. BenÈt	John Huston	Quentin Reynolds
Humphrey Bogart	Robert Trent Jones	Grantland Rice
Heywood Broun	Walt Kelly	Cyril Ritchard
John Mason Brown	Rockwell Kent	Nelson A. Rockefeller
Ward Byron	Jerome Kern	Richard Rodgers
Cass Canfield	John La Farge	Harold Ross
Bruce Catton	Oliver La Farge	Berton Roueché
Marc Connelly	Ring Lardner	Richard Rovere
Norman Cousins	Walter Lippmann	Alexander Scourby
Hart Crane	Harold Lloyd	William Shawn
Ralston Crawford	Walter Lord	Robert E. Sherwood
]. N. “Ding” Darling	Henry R. Luce	John Sloane
Richard de Rochemont	Alfred Lunt	Ben Sonnenberg
Reginald Denham	Russell Lynes	Eugene Spreicher
Nelson Doubleday	Charles MacArthur	Francis Steegmuller
Melvyn Douglas	Ferris C. Mack	Edward Steichen
Maitland Edey	John P. Marquand	John Steinbeck
Walker Evans	Herbert Marshall	Norman Thomas
Marshall Field	S. L. A. Marshall	Gene Tunney
Alan R. Finberg	Raymond Massey	DeWitt Wallace
Raoul H. Fleischmann	T. S. Matthews	Hugh Walpole
Henry Fonda	W. Somerset Maugham	Alec Waugh
R. Buckminster Fuller	André Maurois	Edmund Wilson
Paul Gallico	Edward McCartan	Roland Young