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@sohohouse<\/p>\nPrivate members' clubs are having revivals. Once cigar-filled, men-only enclaves, they have become daily haunts for the creative class. The pandemic was the turning point. When lockdowns ended, people craved face-to-face connection again. Entrepreneurs and freelancers began treating these \"third spaces\" as offices \u2014 working there by day, staying on for talks and gatherings at night. No conversation about this kind of space can leave out Soho House. Founded in London in 1995, the brand set itself apart from old-school gentlemen's clubs from day one \u2014 no bankers or lawyers, only people from media, film, and design. Three decades on, it operates more than 40 houses worldwide, and membership itself works as a social calling card. It has largely defined what the modern members' club looks like: judged by circle, not pedigree; work by day, socialize by night. In 2019, Soho House opened in Sheung Wan \u2014 the brand's first outpost in East Asia, in a property founder Nick Jones spent a decade searching for. An entire 28-story office tower was converted into the club, the largest in the world at the time of opening.<\/p>\n
@sohohouse<\/p>\n
But the market now has new challengers: luxury hotels. A report in Euronews Travel this May put its finger on the trend: hotels already have the gyms and pools, so moving into membership looks like a natural step. The hard part is building a community that mixes well from day to night \u2014 and fits the hotel's personality.<\/p>\n
The idea of hotels as gathering places for locals has been brewing for a while. Dull all-day-dining rooms have given way to starred restaurants; lobby lounges have become stand-ins for caf\u00e9s. Hotels no longer belong justto their guests. Margo Ford, European membership manager of The Cover, the club under Sircle Collection, said in the report that lifestyle hotels are becoming destinations for the residents of their cities. Sir Hotels has long deliberately avoided tourist districts, choosing locations that reflect a city's soul: its first property, Sir Albert, opened in a former diamond factory in Amsterdam's De Pijp, a neighborhood where locals shop the street market, not the canal-side tourist strip. Ford said the club was founded for a simple reason: to give people real human contact again after pandemic isolation, and to find members who want both professional collaboration and social connection.<\/p>\n
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@sirhotels<\/p>\n
Perhaps no one has pushed this conceptfurther than Six Senses, the group that started with wellness resorts in Asia, most of them in remote natural settings. This year it opened its first urban hotel on the site of the former Whiteley's department store in London's Bayswater, launching a members' club, Six Senses Place, alongside it. What the club sells is not a social scene but a full regimen of physical and mental restoration. Programming follows a seasonal calendar built around healing, self-development, and sustainability: weekly sessions combine breathwork, meditation, and cardio, and the club has even run a nightingale walk at a rewilded English estate. There is a resident crystal reader on site, and members can work with an apothecary to blend bespoke tinctures from seasonal herbs. Club director Nico Eden says what he most looks forward to is letting data-driven science and mysticism coexist \u2014 not conflated, but acknowledged as things that have always stood side by side. London already has more than 130 members' clubs. The market is crowded, but Eden believes the combination of social life and wellness fills exactly the gap that remains.<\/p>\n
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@sixsenses<\/p>\n
Six Senses' ambitions go beyond the city. According to an official press release from developer Red Sea Global, Six Senses AMAALA welcomed its first guests in mid-July at Triple Bay on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. AMAALA as a destination positions itself as \"the world's most comprehensive wellness destination,\" and Six Senses speaks the same language here: a longevity center, a Watsu aquatic therapy pool, a sound dome, a biohacking recovery room, plus tailor-made wellness programs. Red Sea Global's Group CEO John Pagano said in the release that Six Senses was chosen precisely for its reputation for wellness experiences rooted in nature, sustainability, and local culture. Put the London club and the Red Sea resort side by side and it becomes clear that Six Senses is doing one and the same thing: in the city, membership keeps you close; on holiday, the destination catches you. Healing extends from daily life into the journey. When wellness becomes the core selling point of a membership, what is the club really selling \u2014 social life, or a ritual of self-management?<\/p>\n
Back among the hotel brands, two other markers make the shift unmistakable. The first is Aman. Aman Club, launched in 2022, currently operates in New York, Tokyo, and Bangkok, with ten more locations in development. It is invitation-only, membership can be passed down to immediate family, and the New York club currently accepts waitlist applications only. A top luxury hotel group has turned membership into a group-level product line \u2014 the barrier to entry acts as a screening mechanism itself. The second is Rosewood. In June 2021, Rosewood opened Carlyle & Co. across three floors above its Hong Kong flagship hotel, explicitly positioned as a new brand for the group. Its inspiration is The Carlyle in New York \u2014 the legendary hotel where the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe once lingered \u2014 and Caf\u00e9 Carlyle, the supper club that has run for more than 65 years, left New York for the first time to land in Hong Kong. The 25,000-square-foot club, designed by British designer Ilse Crawford, is reached by its own dedicated elevator, entirely separate from the hotel's circulation. Inside are a music room, a wine cellar, and a games room, even a resident barber and tailor, along with eight guest rooms named after figures from The Carlyle's history, for members who stay out too late. Group CEO Sonia Cheng calls it her personal passion project and stresses that members are chosen for character, passion, and story \u2014 not status or profession. Worth noting: Rosewood is a hotel group led by a Chinese family, and in this wave of transformation it moved earlier than most Western brands.<\/p>\n
This lane, though, does not belong to hotels alone. Hong Kong's Club B\u00e2tard takes the opposite route entirely. Created by Michael Wu, founder of Hong Kong wine merchant The Fine Wine Experience, together with restaurateur Randy See, it opened in 2024 in the century-old Pedder Building in Central, three floors threaded through a glass wine cellar holding more than 10,000 bottles. The business logic is blunt: members drink at retail prices, with no restaurant markup. French restaurant B\u00e2tard and Cantonese restaurant Hop Sze both closed their original locations and moved wholesale into the club, joined by all-day restaurant Le Clos and OBE, a whisky bar built around old bottles. Membership is capped at 1,200. It sells no pool and no gym \u2014 what it sells is the combination of top wines at retail prices and restaurants you cannot book. And the model is now heading into mainland China: in May, Club B\u00e2tard announced its expansion to Shanghai, taking over Cha House, the century-old standalone building at HKRI Taikoo Hui in Jing'an \u2014 the very space vacated earlier this year by The Harrods Tea Rooms and private members' club The Residence \u2014 with an opening slated for November. The same membership shell, filled two ways: hotels pour in a lifestyle; a wine merchant pours in client relationships.<\/p>\n
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@ClubB\u00e2tard<\/p>\n
The numbers also prove the market's popularity. Matt Hobbs, founder of industry consultancy Copper Beech, points out that more clubs have opened in the past five years than in the previous thirty combined; London is estimated to have more than 130clubs, and New York has added as many as 10 in recent years. Not every brand is rushing in, of course. The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, parent of The Peninsula, was founded in 1866 and is one of the world's oldest hotel companies. It has never launched a paid members' club \u2014 it does not even run a points-based loyalty program \u2014 preferring the old-school path of \"we recognize you\" over \"we reward you.\" The lobby tea lounge at The Peninsula Hong Kong has been open for nearly a century, and anyone willing to queue can take a seat. That hospitality, open to all, is the exact opposite of the closed logic of membership. Between those holding to tradition and those embracing the membership card,which oneis closer to the essence of luxury?<\/p>\n
Why are hotels queuing up to build clubs? Steady membership-fee cash flow, turning passing guests into returning ones, converting locals from passersby into assets \u2014 the reasons all hold up on paper. But the better question is this: when every brand has its own club, how much scarcity is left in \"exclusive\"? And who enters the arena next? The answer may not be far off.<\/p>\n
Text: Tina Hsieh
\nPhoto Credit: @FabioFistarol \/ @sohohouse \/ @sirhotels \/ @sixsenses \/ @Carlyle & Co. \/ @ClubB\u00e2tard \/ @thePeninsulaHK<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Private members' clubs are having revivals. Once cigar-filled, men-only enclaves, they have become daily haunts for the creative class. The pandemic was the turning point. When lockdowns ended, people craved face-to-face connection again. Entrepreneurs and freelancers began treating these \"third spaces\" as offices \u2014 working there by day, staying on for talks and gatherings at night. No conversation about this kind of space can leave out Soho House. Founded in London in 1995, the brand set itself apart from old-school gentlemen's clubs from day one \u2014 no bankers or lawyers, only people from media, film, and design. Three decades on, it operates more than 40 houses worldwide, and membership itself works as a social calling card. It has largely defined what the modern members' club looks like: judged by circle, not pedigree; work by day, socialize by night. In 2019, Soho House opened in Sheung Wan \u2014 the brand's first outpost in East Asia, in a property founder Nick Jones spent a decade searching for. An entire 28-story office tower was converted into the club, the largest in the world at the time of opening.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hotel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n