21c Museum Hotel Kansas City

When the original 21c Museum Hotel opened in Louisville, Kentucky, we hoped it would be the beginning of a wave of stylish, luxurious, culturally accomplished boutique hotels in smaller cities all across America. What we didn’t know was that not only would this wish come true, but it would be the 21c group itself that made it happen. 21c Museum Hotel Kansas City is the eighth addition to the family, a redevelopment of the historic Savoy Hotel, in the Financial District at the heart of Missouri’s largest city.

Like its siblings, this 21c is the work of Deborah Berke Partners, the practice founded by the dean of the Yale Architecture School, and it’s as elegant and confident as you’d expect it to be. The rooms’ high ceilings and generous proportions are a fine foundation for a modern luxury boutique hotel, and they’re dressed up with contemporary furniture and original artworks.

The old Savoy Grill has been reinvented as the Savoy at 21c, and it’s a thorough update of the 1903-vintage space, serving upscale American classics by Kansas City chef Joe West. And the centerpiece of the hotel, as always, is its contemporary art museum, which is free and open to the public every day of the year.