What we saw at the Rockhill Tennis Club sale

​I was never a member of the Rockhill Tennis Club, the cozy urban members-only enclave across Rockhill Road from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. But I had friends who did belong to the club, which had opened in 1955 in the stone mansion once owned by Laura Kirkwood Nelson, the daughter of Kansas City Star founder — and patron of the museum that bears his name — William Rockhill Nelson.

Laura’s home was built across the street from the property that had once been her father’s estate, Oak Hall, a century ago. It was sold to DeVere Dierks in 1922 and donated to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in 1954. After more than half a century at 46th and Rockhill Road, the Rockhill Tennis Club was required to move out of the property when the Nelson-Atkins Museum chose not to renew the club’s lease in order to use the home for offices.

Over the weekend, much of the club’s interior decor and kitchen equipment was sold off at an estate sale. The once glimmering pool — which traditionally opened Memorial Day weekend — is covered with a sagging tarp and the water in the old kiddie pool, pictured above, is murky and home to two contented geese.