Readers will hopefully excuse “a rant.” I don’t often do these - and I promise to be sparing in future - but I suspect this is a topic of enormous interest and timeliness in Clubland.
One deliberate omission from my recent press round-ups was a City AM column titled “Private members’ clubs are the new face of London heritage.” It was by Daniel Kyriakides, “a real estate partner at Reed Smith LLP, advising investors, developers and operators across the hospitality and leisure sectors.” It is an absolute must-read for Clubland Substack subscribers - but probably not for the reasons intended by either the author or the newspaper. He has offered his opinion. So here is mine.
My mailbox is often full of readers’ comments and questions on variations of what Ben Schott calls “ersatz clubs” - establishments that offer all the amenities expected of a club (and often on a more sumptuous scale) - but Schott highlights the difference, given:
“the absurd proliferation of enterprises that walk like clubs and talk like clubs but are not clubs at all…Hard to join but easy to use, genuine clubs are microcosms of mutual simpatico. Most significantly they are owned by – and run for – their members, who decide upon every detail from the make-up of the membership to the mark-up on the wine. By contrast, ersatz establishments like Nikita, Apollo’s Muse and Ten Trinity Square are for-profit businesses operated for the benefit of their owners.”
Something I have been arguing for some time is that the recent explosion in chic new clubs is not demand-led, it is investor-led. Demand for members’ clubs has always been high, but that has not always translated into dozens of new clubs opening each year, across the world’s wealthiest capitals. What has changed in recent years is the willingness of investors to pour money into such ventures - with the hotel-clubs being a popular investment vehicle, offering metrics that are appealing to investors. Kyriakides’ City AM piece says the quiet part out loud on this:
“For hotel investors, this shift has been transformative. Hybrid hotel-club projects generate a compelling blend of recurring and high-margin income.”
Naturally, this has little to do with conviviality, clubbability, community, or any of the core things members value about their clubs.
I have already written about the tendency for hotels to be at the forefront of this phenomenon - “We’ve got some spare space around the back that nobody uses, we already have a kitchen, reception and waiters - why not convert a couple of our empty suites into a club?” is not an unusual line of thought.
Our City AM columnist Mr. Kyrakides continues:
“Today’s club brands – Soho House, The Ned, The Twenty Two, Maison Estelle and others – have transformed membership into a lifestyle proposition. These venues are no longer simply places to dine or socialise; they offer flexible workspace, wellness, culture and a sense of curated belonging that aligns with how Londoners and international visitors now live and work.”
As well as having an instinctive mistrust of anything involving pretensions to a “lifestyle” (I often remember John Bird and John Fortune’s wry observation, “But I don’t have a lifestyle, I just sit in the pub all day”), I would humbly suggest that this expansion of clubs is not actually as new as the author seems to think. With the possible expansion of gym and wellness spaces - which spring more than anything else from the trend for longevity cures among the super-wealthy (and characterised by some doctors as a diagnosable disorder) - clubs have combined a sense of belonging with a range of facilities for a good two hundred years.
Indeed, as I have pointed out, hotel-club hybrids in particular have been cropping up since the mid-19th century (although none of the modern hotel-clubs I have spoken to seemed remotely aware of this, each firmly believing that they were at the forefront of “a new concept in hospitality.”)
The wider premise is built on a series of questionable propositions, starting with what Kyriakides describes in City AM:
“London invented the private members’ club; now, its modern reinvention is reshaping the economics of hotel investment.”
…which is of course, not the case. As I have gone to great pains to stress before, London did not invent the private members’ club, a 17th century north American innovation drawing on a 16th century Italian tradition of sociability in the Circoli. London merely imported, popularised and exported it.
Then there is Kyriakides’ observation:
“This unique hospitality concept has also capitalised on use of their London brands to move into the countryside retreat space, with Estelle Manor and Soho Farmhouse now being two of the most in-demand English hotels outside of London.”
Translation: “There’s money to be made setting up a rural branch.” Which may well be true. But there is a reason why clubs remain overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon in the UK, even when they draw their wider membership from a larger rural periphery. Which is my roundabout way of saying that an urban club can open a rural facility, and it can be an extremely popular amenity among members; but that is not quite the same proposition as replicating the experience of club members in the countryside.
The economics of country clubs follow a markedly different model to that of city clubs - one which requires substantially higher overheads, and both higher joining fees and higher subscriptions to pay for them. There is a reason why relatively few city clubs also operate a country club, and there is a reason why those that do so require much higher fees, and/or much higher membership numbers. Even then, it has often been historically the case that the country clubhouse loses even more money than the city clubhouse.
And so we find ourselves at the logical end-point of all this, with Liz Truss promoting a £500,000-a-membership business club in a disused Mayfair office block that will also offer “a state-of-the-art healthcare, diagnostics and wellness facility” in a converted 1990s industrial business park, in a suburb of Aldershot.
The City AM piece adds:
“Additionally, even where luxury hotels are not directly linked to an established private members’ club brand, most have now locked-in to the lifestyle playbook: offering gym and spa memberships to non-guests, embedding sustainability and wellness into their brand narratives and increasingly moving into the branded-residences market.”
This passage does rather seem to give the game away - the aims described seem motivated by making more money for the investors, rather than centring around the needs of members.
Membership, or even being a hotel guest, are not prerequisites to this vision - this is an argument which, reductio ad absurdum, favours taking anyone’s money. Which, of course, defeats the whole point of having a private members’ club in the first place, if it is neither private, nor for members. It may (or may not) make for a very nice facility. But there is unlikely to be the sense of cohesion found amongst members who share values and/or culture, and it is unlikely that paying users will have undergone comparable vetting. Which is probably why books on the history of luxury hotels (and I’ve read quite a few lately) are crammed with tales of guests including any number of incorrigible rogues, scoundrels, scammers, forgers, fraudsters, imposters, confidence tricksters, arms dealers, wife-beaters, rapists, pimps and deposed dictators. (Not that clubs as a whole have been exempt from these, either. But there is at least an attempt at vetting; and it is much less common for such tales to reach the public.)
Our City AM columnist describes:
“One of the most dynamic investment trends in London’s hospitality market: the rise of the club-hotel hybrid…Hotels are uniquely positioned to leverage their hospitality brands, and customers have shown they are willing to pay significant premiums to live within a luxury hotel ecosystem.”
This is all undoubtedly true. But it also shows that the kind of hotel-clubs embraced here come out of a hotel concierge tradition, not out of a club tradition. And while hotels might not blink at the difference, members’ clubs may rightly come to regard the “concierge tradition” as a dangerous contagion which can destroy the whole club ecosystem, if allowed to spread.
On the face of it, the “concierge tradition” is deeply appealing. It promises everything to the member. When dealing with a dutiful hotel concierge, the hotel guest can have all their whims appeased: those elusive theatre tickets are booked, that rare holiday arranged, the much-needed advice given. Everybody likes the idea of having a ‘Jeeves’ figure in their lives.
The “concierge tradition” is also a cancer on clubs. It has nothing to do with a club. It is ‘Jeeves’ on the cheap, shared with several thousand other members. Taken to its logical conclusion, it leads to members asking for the exclusive use of club areas - “I’d love to have use of the dining room all to myself, without any other members around.” It leads to members asking for the concierge to help out with parts of their personal or business life that have nothing to do with club life - and club time and resources being expended on this. It leads to hundreds of members all feeling entitled to having their own hotline to “Jeeves”, treating the club staff as their own personal domestic staff. In short, it leads to entitled members, who are a pain for staff and fellow members alike.
If you want your own personal Jeeves, then pay for one. (And pay them well.) Do not expect your club to subsidise your private lifestyle. And do not expect clubs to deprive other members of shared club facilities. Real clubs are inherently about sharing with other members. Which is why I would argue that clubs which stray into the conciergerie area are headed for an unsustainable business model, building unrealistic expectations among their members. Most dangerously, the resultant culture is “Me, me, me” - or more precisely, “Which personal benefits can I derive from my club?”, rather than participating in a club community of fellow members, who can contribute to club life socially, intellectually and financially.
And our City AM columnist makes no secret of the fact that the dash for profits is behind the hotel-clubs’ dash for amenities:
“Membership fees, restaurant and bar revenues, wellness offerings, events, co-working and private hire all contribute to a robust non-room income stream that stabilises value and smooths trading volatility. As transactional lawyers advising on hospitality investments, we increasingly see investors modelling clubs not as ancillary amenities, but as core economic engines – particularly as guests and residents look for long-term lifestyle alignment rather than short-stay convenience.”
How charmingly put. Who wants to be a member of a “core economic engine” with “ancillary amenities” offering “lifestyle alignment”?
By contrast, I recently related how, “the debt-fuelled “race for facilities” approach can be an existential threat to the very viability of the club model.” Though to be fair to Kyriakides’ City AM piece, it goes on to recognise that this is indeed one of the biggest fundamental weaknesses to this whole approach:
“However, the evolution toward experience-led hospitality does carry its own risks – chief among them is the substantially higher capital expenditure required to create and maintain these offerings. Generating the kind of unique, design-driven environments that today’s luxury customer expects requires significant upfront investment. And unlike traditional hotel offerings, which can retain their appeal with periodic refurbishment, lifestyle hotels and club-hybrids must continually reinvest to stay relevant. Wellness facilities, restaurant concepts, interiors and cultural programming all need frequent updating, placing ongoing demands on operators’ capital budgets.”
The City AM piece also gives the game away on another aspect. Whilst these clubs often drape themselves (literally and metaphorically) in the Union flag, offering up chintzy interiors with floral wallpapers reminiscent of traditional English (or Scottish or Irish) country houses, these clubs are usually nowhere near as quintessentially British as they often pretend to be. Being Swiss, I know all about that. In fact, not only are many of the owners of these new London clubs based overseas, but the investors pushing for these clubs are also disproportionately drawn from overseas, seeing in London Clubland a priceless piece of Intellectual Property - as Kyriakides recognises:
“This is one reason why overseas capital – particularly from North America and the Middle East – has been gravitating toward London’s hotel market. Investors see London not only as a safe-haven real-asset environment, but also as a city where hotels are evolving into multifunctional lifestyle destinations. Private credit funds, too, have become more active lenders in the sector.”
Our columnist is entirely correct about how the subscription-based model is much more stable - something that has been a key ingredient to the resilience of traditional clubs over the years:
“For global investors, developers and operators, the appeal of this model lies in its diversified income, improved asset resilience and ability to meet the lifestyle expectations of today’s luxury consumer.”
…and how:
“The predictable subscription-based revenues of clubs, branded residences and wellness memberships create a more attractive credit profile than the traditional reliance on income from rooms alone.”
But the impression left on me, upon reading his piece, is of a shamelessly cynical vision for Clubland; one which I see echoed in too many of the latest wave of clubs, which seem to stem from an afterthought for hotel investors, rather than a heartfelt endeavour among members who genuinely share interests, values and outlooks.
This is not an argument for older clubs over newer clubs. Once upon a time, all of the older clubs started out as newer clubs; and London in particular has its fair share of newer clubs that are an absolute delight: for instance, examples include The Academy, a stronghold of lunchtime erudition (without so much as a website) in a ramshackle set of Georgian rooms above a Soho antiquarian print shop; Brydges Place, a rabbit’s warren of charming dining rooms reached down an unpromising alleyway near Trafalgar Square; the Frontline Club in Paddington, a bastion of independent journalism and thoughtful discussion among knowing practitioners, several of whom could probably kill you with their bare hands; the Union Club, a delightfully eccentric Soho stalwart filled with outsize personalities and genuine creatives; the beguilingly unconventional Vout-O-Reenee’s, in a deconsecrated church crypt near the Tower of London, filled with literary types; or the compact Walbrook Club in the heart of the City, a deeply personal endeavour for the Palumbo family, with an esoteric blend of good taste; and many more. None of these clubs is touted as a value proposition for hotel investors. You won’t find these clubs featuring in an endless stream of paid-for advertorials, or populating a clickbait list of “the fifteen best clubs in London”, sourced from a quick Google search. Yet each of these clubs (and those like them) have heart, and wit, and culture. Because they are not built on ‘snob appeal’, they tend to be of little interest to the bores and social climbers that can plague better-known establishments, old and new. Conversations with members are unpredictable and informative. Staff are a delight, with a sense of whimsy and candour not easily found in the more corporate establishments. Despite being “babies” in London Clubland terms (they are between 12 and 43 years old), each has already survived well beyond the average three-year lifespan of a new club in the capital. If more of the new clubs were made in this image, then I suspect London Clubland would be a lot more fun, for members and guests alike.
Instead, I leave you with Kyriakides’ conclusion that:
“London’s heritage has once again become one of its strongest commercial assets.”
And this is what London’s hotel-club revolution is really all about. Monetising and marketing a pre-packaged, sanitised, twee version of “old English” history. Even if some resultant establishments can involve a wholesale reinvention of history bordering on fabrication, in the name of selling “heritage” and “tradition” as a more easily marketable commodity. So I thank Mr. Kyriakides for shining a light on this world. Depressingly, there is an audience for that sort of thing.
N.B. If you enjoyed the above, you may also like this recent piece by Ishaan Jajodia and Leonard Robinson over at Clubland USA (not affiliated to this Substack in any way, but I very much enjoy their writings). I particularly agree with their point that “Members are not customers.”
You can view the full and varied backlog of Clubland Substack articles, by clicking on the index below.
Index
Articles are centred around several distinct strands, so the below contains links to the main pieces, sorted by theme.
An excellent piece, thank you, Seth.
Indeed, more rants please! Seth, I'd be especially interested in your views on the differing reciprocal relationships that clubs have between each other. It seems, much to the annoyance of some members, that some clubs - especially in London - can be 'overly used' by those who are members of reciprocal clubs. The seemingly unlimited pass that recip members have, in some instances, seems odd...