February Clubland press round-up
This month has seen no shortage of press coverage, mainly focused around the newer clubs.
CityAM took a detailed look at the problems leading to the closure of AllBright, and the wider implications for the future of women’s clubs in London. I spoke to them for the feature, mainly about clubonomics; and indeed, the Clubland Substack was also quoted.
In recent years, billionaire property developers the Reuben Brothers have become more involved in opening new hotel-clubs in London; public-facing hotels with a private members’ area. Currently ranked #3 in the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated net worth of £24.9 billion, they launched The Twenty Two at 22 Grosvenor Square in 2022 (though are no longer listed as persons with significant control). They are already working to open two new hotel-clubs: one will open later this year in the former home of the Naval & Military (“In & Out”) Club, at Cambridge House, on Piccadilly, and the other will open in 2026 in Admiralty Arch, over The Mall.
But this month, the Reuben Brothers announced that they are planning a new club, behind Cambridge House. The Cambridge House complex is part of a much wider 1.3 acre parcel of land they are redeveloping in Mayfair.
These latest plans are for a residential development called One Carrington, which will embed a business-themed private members’ club called “The Carrington”, which is to be run as a collaboration with 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s proprietor Robin Birley. This new club will be Birley’s first business club.
With the launch of Soho House’s fourth Ned club in Washington D.C. (after existing branches in London, New York and Doha) , several outlets have run near-identical advertorials for the new club, including the Robb Report, and Yahoo.
More generally, I have observed that Soho House has the greatest success of any club(s) in planting favourable press coverage; for instance, the phenomenon picked up on last month, of Soho House talking up the value of its art collection while it negotiates the sale of the chain, continues this month with The Washingtonian’s interview with the Ned’s director of its art colection.
On the subject of Soho House, British tabloid The Sun recently reported on lurid tales from Soho Farmhouse, noting that a man was interviewed by police under caution, for allegedly head-butting a security guard during an altercation at a football star’s birthday party.
One particular curio is the below classified advert in a recent edition of Private Eye magazine, spotted by an eagle-eyed Clubland Substack subscriber: “Journalist looking for sources working in London private member [sic] clubs.”
No name or publication is given - just an email address for the mozmail domain, which preserves a user’s anonymity.
The Times published a puff piece for NEXUS Club London, the new branch of an international club chain, with existing clubhouses in New York and the Bahamas. The Club occupies the former clubhouse of the South Kensington Club, which had closed down in 2023.
The piece opens with the claim that, “the number of private members’ clubs operating in London”, from White’s to modern clubs, is “about sixty”. The actual number is over twice that. There are many similarly inaccurate claims throughout the promotional piece.
Simon Hart, who was Chief Whip of the Conservative Party in the UK’s previous government, has published his diary, and it was serialised in the Daily Telegraph. It includes a cautionary tale about how a night out starting in one traditional London club went very wrong:
You can read the full and varied backlog of Clubland Substack articles, by visiting https://clubland.substack.com/archive