In November 1782, the newly formed Kildare Street Club purchased a property on Kildare Street for its new premises. Later they purchased a second adjoining house, and both were largely destroyed by fire in 1860. They then proceeded to have Benjamin Woodward design a new premises for the club. Woodward died before completion but the execution was overseen by his partner Thomas N. Deane. It was described as one of the finest interiors of 19th century Dublin.

With the decline in members, the club merged with another based on Stephen's Green and moved out. Planning permission was refused for its demolition in 1967. The building was divided up during 1971 so that little remains of the fine interiors. The fine staircase with its stone balustrades, the hall with its fine vaulted arcades, the drawing room, and the morning room were all destroyed and office space inserted into the building. The National Genelogical Museum is based in part of the building, and its main exhibition space demonstrates the scale of the original interiors.

A notable feature of the building is the ebullient external sculpture by the O'Shea brothers, notably the carving around the window columns of monkeys involved in the various sports associated with the gentleman of the time. The monkeys playing pool are a particular favourite. These carvings were badly damaged during an over zealous cleaning of the facade some years ago. The brothers were also responsible for the carvings in the Oxford Museum as well as at the nearby Trinity Museum. At Oxford, some of theire work was removed in the fallout from Darwin's publication of the "Origin of the Species". The O'Sheas had carved monkeys on one of the window surrounds which had to be removed as the stringent religious morals and beliefs of the college dons would not accept that man was related to monkeys in any way. At the Kildare Street Club, the O'Shea's got their monkeys.