Following the meeting, so swiftly did the organization work that only a month later, on March 25, 1891, the membership had been secured and the financing of a great clubhouse completed. The original land was bought through the contribution of $5,000 by each of the twenty-five original Governors.

The land on which the Clubhouse stands - 100 feet fronting on Fifth Avenue and 200 feet on 60th Street - was acquired from the Duchess of Marlborough who signed the purchase agreement in the United States Consulate in London. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who represented the Governors, signed for the Club.

At that time, the old Fifth Avenue stages, with dark blue panels and running gear in red, jolted and rumbled slowly up and down the Avenue over the rough granite cobblestones, while on Madison Avenue the horse-driven yellow street cars pursued the uneven tenor of their way upon the car tracks. The hansom cabs, the victorias, and in winter, the sleighs still drove through Central Park. In such a day and age The Metropolitan Club and its ensuing tradition had its origin.

In those leisurely times, three years were required to build and furnish the Clubhouse. The first dinner was one that the Governors attended on February 20, 1894, in what is now the Manager's Office on the First Mezzanine and what was the Strangers' Dining Room. On February 26th, the house was viewed by the Press and on the following day, a Sunday, it was turned over to the members.

On April 17, 1894, the Finance and Building Committee discharged itself, reporting that the cost incurred and fully paid was $1,777,480.20 and the Committee had, additionally, $122,519.20 in the bank. At the turn of the century these were staggering figures. The dormitory wing on the East Side of the Court now known as the Annex - was acquired twenty years later.