The St. Regis Hotel: Fit for a Queen

In the 1960s, long after the glory days of the St. Regis Hotel —  the 96-year-old former residential hotel at the corner of the Linwood and the Paseo — but well before its unsavory current incarnation, the building was home to a local celebrity: Butch Ellis. Yes, that was his given name, but Ellis was known as Miss Butch Ellis when he slipped into a slinky gown and an artfully-coiffed flame red wig (“That was his trademark color,” recalled a friend, “all his wigs were flaming red.”) at the old Jewel Box Lounge at 32nd and Troost. Ellis had a day job too and that’s where the story of his move into the St. Regis Apartments comes in.

Ellis, according to longtime friend Charles Ballew, was the show coordinator at the Jewel Box Lounge — Kansas City’s premier show bar for “femme mimics” (the term drag queen was considered too coarse). But during the day, he worked as the rehearsal pianist for what was then the Kansas City Philharmonic. Because of that job, Ellis owned a Steinway grand piano. And one day in 1963, he called a group of friends over to the St. Regis Apartments to help his move his Steinway piano up to his top-floor apartment, which boasted a huge living room and a patio.

But there was a problem.