March Clubland press round-up
Another busy month for Clubland in the global media
The Caterer reports that The Dally, a new private members’ club which opened only nine months ago on Islington’s Upper Street, had to close down last week.
The intention had been for this club to spark off a string of five further neighbourhood-based clubs in London suburbs, and six months ago The Dally launched a £1 million fundraiser to help it expand. The idea had been to connect people who were increasingly working from home, by providing them with a clubhouse in their own community rather than in the city centre.
However, in a social media post quoted by The Caterer, the Club’s co-founder Caroline Baldwin explained:
“A few weeks ago we concluded that The Dally as a members’ club wasn’t working. I could talk for hours on the reasons why, what we got wrong, and the difficulties of a neighbourhood club compared to a central London club, but that is for another day.
“Ultimately the finances of a small club do not work and because we pitched our membership fees at an affordable level, it left us with a mountain to climb to get to break even - something we haven’t been able to do…So with a heavy heart we went back to the drawing board and looked at what has worked over the last year and what hasn't, and this has led to the conclusion that the members' club couldn't continue and onto our first major pivot.”
Instead, the premises reopened on Friday as The Hare and Hounds, a combined gastropub, community centre and cocktail bar.
ARTnews recently reported further developments around the saga of the proposed sale of the Soho House Group:
“Securities law firm Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP (BFA) announced Friday that it is investigating Soho House, its board of directors, and its controlling stockholders for potential breaches of fiduciary duty. The news comes after the private members’ club announced in December that it received a buyout offer from an unnamed third party.”
The report stresses:
“It’s important to note that these “investigations” are not backed by a government regulatory body like, say, the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rather, they should be seen primarily as a law firm—most often one that litigates class action lawsuits—announcing its intent to initiate a lawsuit against the company in question…
“BFA said in a statement that this offer arrangement [to buy the Soho House chain for $1.75 billion] “raises serious concerns about conflicts of interest that may undermine the rights of minority stockholders.” The firm added that there is “no indication that the offer is conditioned on approval by a special committee or minority stockholders, and therefore minority stockholders may not have any say on whether to approve the ultimate transaction.”
“However, BFA still believes that the sales process being governed by Soho House’s board of directors might “fail to result in payment of fair value to minority stockholders... [As a result, we are] investigating whether the directors, officers, and the controlling stockholders are conducting a sales process that favors the interests of the Company’s controlling stockholders at the expense of minority stockholders in breach of their fiduciary duties,” BFA said.
“Soho House did not immediately respond to ARTnews’ request for comment.”
Soho House also enjoyed a puff-piece in The Spaces, for their new branch of The Ned, “Ned’s Club”, which recently opened in Washington DC.
Ned’s Club was also where Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego was recently accosted by the Republican candidate he defeated last year, Trump advisor Kari Lake - The Bulwark has the story.
Forbes magazine launched their first private members’ club late last year, Forbes House in Madrid, and so Monocle recently interviewed Andrés Rodríguez, the Club’s founder and president. He talks about the importance of a physical space, and notes:
“We have accrued more than 500 members in just a couple of months. It has also become a bridge for people from Latin America, who are increasingly relocating to Madrid instead of Miami.”
The full interview can be heard on last week’s edition of Monocle’s podcast, ‘The Stack’, starting around 19 minutes in. Rodríguez says in the full interview:
“We are thinking to [sic] open new houses around the world, we are discussing how to upscale this idea and this model.”
The Financial Times reported on a UK government crackdown of the use of corporate credit cards by the civil service.
The report notes:
“This included thousands of pounds spent by officials on meals at private members’ clubs”
The report does not specify which clubs.
The FT adds that the overall credit card bill - across all spending items - has more than quadrupled to £675 million, from the 2020-1 pandemic level of £155 million. It suggests that the efficiency drive followed non-club-related expenditure that was disclosed by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in response to a Freedom of Information request.
Jersey’s historic United Club has announced a major new facility, according to the Jersey Evening Post, with the creation of a female fitness and wellbeing centre.
The Club, founded in 1848, has occupied a 17th century building on St Helier’s Royal Square since 1932. It had long operated as a gentlemen’s club, but voted in 2020 to admit women as full members. The new space will be operated by Eve Studios, owned by entrepreneur Trudi Roscouet.
The Clubland Substack had previously noted the 2021 closure of the Princeton Club of New York, after it defaulted on its $39.3 million mortgage debt.
Bloomberg has now reported that the 81,860 square-foot (7,605-square-metre) former clubhouse in Midtown Manhattan, with its two restaurants, squash courts, function rooms and 50 bedrooms, has been “quietly bought” by billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson:
“Now, the financier — whose ownership of the property on West 43rd Street hasn’t previously been reported — is seeking to sell the building or open it as a new membership club, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News and Paulson & Co. General Counsel Stuart Merzer.
Bloomberg notes that after the Princeton Club entered financial difficulties:
“Various efforts to find a lifeline — including one from billionaire Princeton graduate Eric Schmidt — came up short. Eventually, a limited liability company bought the debt and sued to foreclose on the property at 15 W. 43rd St. The ownership of the LLC, named after the address of the club,
wasn’t clear at the time… A representative for CBRE Group Inc., the brokerage marketing the property, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Real Deal reported on the marketing of the property earlier, without disclosing the owner behind the building.”
A new club recently opened in New York: San Vicente West Village at 115 Jane Street at West Street. It is the third branch of a new chain, with the original San Vicente Bungalows having opened in Los Angeles in 2018, and a second in Santa Monica last year.
Eater New York notes that it is one of a flurry of new Manhattan clubs to have opened since 2021:
“including Jean-Georges’s Chez Margaux; London import the Twenty Two; ZZ’s from Carbone; Tao’s Crane Club [whose restaurant has opened, but whose club has not yet done so], Mayor Eric Adams’ favorite, Zero Bond; and Casa Cipriani.”
Like many of these new clubs, San Vicente is a proprietary club run by a hotel chain - in this case, the JK Hotel Group.
The New York Times reported on the publicity hype around this, in an article titled, “San Vicente Bungalows Brings FOMO [Fear Of Missing Out] to New York”:
“San Vicente West Village is the brainchild of Jeff Klein, a businessman with a long track record in hospitality, who opened San Vicente Bungalows Los Angeles in 2018…
“After the coronavirus pandemic, an idea began to gnaw at Mr. Klein: Might he be able to bottle the magic in Los Angeles and bring it back to the city he’d left behind?
“In short order, he decided to test his luck at the Jane Hotel, a red brick West Village landmark along the West Side Highway…
“People who did not get invites were angry about not being invited. People who did get invites were angry about the fees, especially the older ones and some of the most creative ones who were not high-net-worth individuals. Prospective invitees were asked to upload their drivers licenses so that their age-adjusted fees could be determined. No one liked that.
“It so happens that San Vicente’s annual fees are in the same ballpark as those of other New York City private social clubs, such as Casa Cipriani and Chez Margaux. They’re considerably cheaper than the Core Club’s.
“A fair amount of debate began about whether the city had enough juice left to create a lasting clubhouse full of people who were both creative enough and financially solvent enough to pay for membership. Power in New York City is often cultural as much as it is capital.”
Further new Manhattan clubs are slated to open, including Maxime’s at 848 Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, the first US venture of 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s impressario Robin Birley.
One of these recent New York clubs, Casa Cipriani, opened in 2021, and followed with a branch in Milan a year later.
Last week, the New York Post reported that Casa Cipriani will be opening a third branch in Miami, constructing a 17-storey oceanfront tower combining a clubhouse with a 40-bedroom hotel and 23 condos, at 3611 Collins Avenue. The declared intention is to model the decor on Harry’s Bar in Venice. The Post observes that “Casa Cipriani Miami is the brand’s first foray into luxury real estate.”
Wired ran an exclusive about Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, including the allegation that the Club has been selling tickets to non-members for dinner with the President for $1 million, as part of its “Candlelight Dinner” series for small groups; or else for $5 million, tickets could be purchased for a one-on-one dinner with the President.
The tickets for the Club dinners, sold by Super-PAC MAGA Inc, continued to be sold this month. The report notes:
“The $5 million one-on-one meetings have become a ‘hot ticket’ in the business community, says a source familiar with them.
“It’s unclear where the money is going and what it will be used for, but one source with direct knowledge of the dinners said ‘it’s all going to the library’, as in the presidential library that will ostensibly be built once Trump leaves office.”
The Henley Standard noted that the Phyllis Court Club raised just over £34,000 for charity in the last year. It gave over £16,200 each to two charities: ABC to Read, which helps primary school-age children to read, and Clear Sky, which supports children’s mental health. A third charity, Wyfold Riding for the Disabled, received £1,670. All three charities are based in the local community.
More than half the total sum was raised by the Club through collections at the Henley Royal Regatta and the Club’s annual Christmas fair, with the balance being raised at members’ events throughout the year.
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.