Original door key for the ‘Gold Suite’ in the famed Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas, the sixth-floor room used by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson when he and President John F. Kennedy visited the hotel to attend a League of United Latin American Citizens dinner on the evening of November 21, 1963, the night before JFK was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. The Sargent key is engraved “Gold R” on the right side of the head, and includes its original wooden key tag, with one side etched: “Rice Hotel, Houston, Texas / Drop In Any Mail Box, We Guarantee Postage.” The reverse bears the hotel emblem. In fine condition.
Accompanied by a signed letter of provenance from the consignor, who affirms that the key was obtained in the early 1990s when he was allowed access to the hotel by its then-owner, Wayne Hancock, who held an auction of the hotel’s contents before its scheduled demolition. After the auction, the consignor and his brother were allowed access to the hotel and allowed to take any remaining items, with this ‘Gold Suite’ key being one of the recovered artifacts. Plans for the demolition were ultimately canceled, and the Rice was developed into luxury apartments.
Within months of Kennedy’s death, the president's widow, Jacqueline, asked author and historian William Manchester to write an authorized account of the assassination. The result was the best-selling book The Death of a President, which, on page 82, details the rooms that Kennedy and Johnson used at the Rice that evening. That page, reads, in part: “Rice's fifth floor, the President's, was reserved for those closest to him: Larry, Ken, Dave, Evelyn, Dr. Burkley, Generals Clifton and Me. Hugh. The Secret Service arsenal was in 528, the Houston White House switchboard in 514-516. Directly overhead, the Vice President was eating in his sixth-floor Gold Suite ($100 a day) with Lady Bird.”
