Here is the link between the new owners of the Country Club Plaza in KC and the owners of the Chiefs

Two of Kansas City’s most famous properties – the Kansas City Chiefs and the Country Club Plaza – are now owned by members of an equally legendary family: the Hunts of Dallas, descendants of HL Hunt, one of Texas’ most famous oil magnates.

The Chiefs organization was, of course, founded by HL Hunt’s son, Lamar, who died in 2006. He also founded the American Football League and Major League Soccer and is credited with coining the term “Super Bowl.” His son Clark is chairman and CEO of the Chiefs, which he co-owns with his brother Dan and his brother and sister from his father’s first marriage, Sharron Hunt and Lamar Jr.

Lamar Hunt Jr. owns the Kansas City Mavericks ice hockey team. Dan Hunt is president of the FC Dallas soccer club.

On Friday, the 1923-built Country Club Plaza was purchased by Dallas-based HP Village Partners, whose owners include members of the Hunt family.

How close are they?

Very.

“Clark lives down the street from me. Dan lives four houses down the other way. Norma (Lamar Hunt’s wife, who died in 2023) lived one house down,” said Ray Washburne, one of the Plaza’s new owners. “I was at Clark’s wedding.”

Washburne is a partner in HP Village along with his wife Heather Hill Washburne, his brother-in-law Stephen Summers, and Summers’ wife Elisa Summers. Elisa Summers and Heather Hill Washburne are sisters and, like Clark and his family, descendants of HL Hunt.

The Hunt family tree, which, like many American families, includes marriages, divorces and remarriages, is so extensive that it is easy to get lost in its branches.

Legend has it that Haroldson Lafeyette Hunt Jr., born in Illinois in 1889, founded Hunt Oil in 1936 using leases and rights he had acquired in the oil fields of East Texas. He became a tycoon, married three times (as it later turned out, to two women at the same time) and had 15 children. He was reportedly one of the originators of “Dallas,” the 1980s television hit about the feuding Ewing oil family.

The story goes on

HL Hunt’s firstborn was Margaret Hunt Hill, who died in 2017. Lamar Hunt was almost 17 years younger than his eldest sister.

Margaret Hunt Hill was the grandmother of the new Plaza owners.

All family members “want this to be a success,” Washburne said of the Plaza purchase.

Another connection to Kansas City, but not through the Hunt family:

Stephen Summers of HP Village Partners often spent his summers here. His mother is from Kansas City.

“My mother, Emily Summers, went to Southwest High School,” he said. His mother turns 80 this summer. She grew up on 60th Terrace.

“I spent most of my life in Kansas City,” Summers said, “until I went to college.”