Happy New Year! December Clubland press round-up

Your guide to recent press coverage

Most press attention this month has been focused on the Groucho Club, in the aftermath of its abrupt closure last month, following allegations of “a serious crime” committed on the premises, later clarified as an alleged rape. The Clubland Substack was one of the earlier outlets to report on this month’s news that a new licence has been granted by Westminster City Council, on condition of agreement to an additional 13 licensing requirements proposed by the Metropolitan Police, each intended to address an individual objection the police had raised.

These include now requiring a minimum of 48 hours between someone being proposed for membership and their being elected to the Groucho Club; stricter security checks and record-keeping at the front desk to know precisely who is entering and leaving the premises at any given time; staff being stationed in the toilets throughout the afternoons, evenings and nights to monitor use of the cubicles; and improved staff welfare training.

The Groucho Club will be reopening on 10 January 2025, under its new licensing regime.

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The former Friars Club, photographed in March 2023, when it was still in operation.

The clubhouse of New York’s historic Friars Club was sold for $17.2 million on 10th December. It follows the closure of other historic Manhattan clubs in recent years, including the Princeton Club following an October 2021 default on $39.3 million in mortgage debt, from lender Sterling National Bank. This is despite a flurry of new proprietary clubs opening in Manhattan in recent years.

In the case of the Friars Club, there had been a reported 2023 default on its mortgage with lender Kairos Credit Strategies Operating Partnership, initially for $13 million, and which had accumulated by this year to $18.4 million. There followed a foreclosure auction, which saw the sale of the Club approved by the bankruptcy court. Details of the listing can be viewed here.

The 120-year-old club was famed for its celebrity roasts over the decades, for the likes of Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Humphrey Bogart, Sid Caesar, Kelsey Grammer, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles and Barbra Streisand. A 2002 roast of comedian Chevy Chase was particularly noted for the brutality of the comments towards its subject, in contrast to the more light-hearted tone the venue was known for.

The challenges facing some of New York City’s major clubs have garnered press attention in recent months: a July 2024 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal examined the dilemmas of Manhattan’s Ivy League alumni clubs, which have struggled in recent years to maintain the large membership numbers they have traditionally relied upon; the piece looked at measures they have experimented with, including discounted fees, relaxed dress codes, informal cafe areas, co-working spaces and “speed-dating.”

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ArtNet ran this fascinating interview with Kate Bryan, who curates Soho House’s art collection, having built up a portfolio of over 10,000 artworks for the group, mainly through trading valuable artworks for memberships.

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Soho House has also suffered a setback with a fire, which broke out at their Soho Farmhouse branch near Chipping Norton. It is believed that a wood-fired pizza oven was to blame for the blaze.

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HampshireBizNews covered the county’s new rural club, Barnsgrove, based near Basingstoke. Barnsgrove follows the model of a number of recently-launched proprietary clubs in the English countryside, whether as branches of London clubs (such as the RAC’s long-standing Woodcote Park estate in Surrey, and Maison Estelle’s new-ish Oxfordshire estate, Estelle Manor), or as standalone establishments such as The Club by Bamford, launched last year at Moreton-in-Marsh.