The Clubs of Washington, D.C.
As the United States’ seat of government since 1800, Washington, D.C. has always been a deeply political town – and therefore a town of clubs. Early D.C. clubs of the 19th century were both fashionable and informal, focused on the area directly north of the White House – where many are still found today.
If you want a sense of D.C. as a political city, there is nothing quite like watching lobbyists at work during breakfast. When Congress is in recess, club breakfasts can be sleepy affairs. But once Congress is in session, the clubs really come into their own over the breakfast tables, which can be crowded to capacity. Lobbyists hold court over intimate meetings, whether in larger dining rooms or more private meeting rooms; and watching lobbyists “work the room”, circulating around the breakfast tables handing out business cards, can be quite the spectator sport (even though some clubs ban the practice of handing out cards). This is, however, just one manifestation, and is a phenomenon as easily seen in the hotels, think tanks, offices and conference centres of the city. But it is also reflected in many of the clubs. And of course, lobbyists are far from the only people in evidence: a multiplicity of stakeholders from across the political scene (and spectrum) breathe life into these clubs.
I have written of the phenomenon of “club government” in British clubs; the legacy of political parties working out of the clubs in the 19th century. There is something of a parallel role in the informal role the D.C. clubs play in oiling the wheels of power, particularly with the emphasis on privacy and discretion. Yet it is not all “behind closed doors”, and D.C. clubs also revel in occasionally hosting high-profile gala setpiece events, such as the Inauguration Breakfasts for Jimmy Carter at the Sulgrave Club in 1977, and for Ronald Reagan at the old City Tavern Club in 1981.
THE HISTORIC CLUBS
The first of the major D.C. clubs came to a sticky end: the National Club, just north of the White House, was embroiled in a major scandal when one member killed another on the front steps in 1859, over a love triangle both members were involved in. Over the ensuing years, feelings ran high over the Civil War, and displaced members of the National Club who supported the Union were to form in 1863 the oldest of D.C.’s clubs today, the Metropolitan Club, which was created at the instigation of six Treasury Department officials. Located two blocks north-west of the White House in an imposing 1908 mansion, this has long been considered one of the most socially prestigious clubs of the USA. It has numbered six US Presidents amongst its membership: Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., on H Street NW.
A different kind of club is found a mile north, in the upmarket district of Dupont Circle, dominated by embassies and mansions: the Cosmos Club, founded by the geologist John Wesley Powell in 1878. With its extensive working library, and a lobby displaying portraits of its scores of Nobel Prize Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and Presidential Medal of Freedom holders, the Cosmos’ emphasis has long been on scholarly attainment and academic insight, with an unusually rich platform of speaker events. It remains the D.C. counterpart to clubs like the Athenæum in London, and the Century Association in New York. Since 1952, it has occupied the 19th century Townsend House on Massachusetts Avenue.
The Cosmos Club on Massachusetts Avenue, off Dupont Circle.
A much more secretive club, founded in 1884, is the men-only Alibi Club, so called because “I’m at my club” was a common alibi of its members when explaining to their wives their absences in the evenings. Based in a small townhouse on I Street, in recent years it has been the subject of a widespread rumour that it had closed down for good – the source seeming to be this 2018 article based on a notice outside the house, which suggested that it had fallen vacant. However, multiple sources have all confirmed to me that the Alibi Club is in fact alive and well – its members simply value their privacy.
The Alibi Club on I Street.
A larger establishment is the Army and Navy Club on Farragut Square, originally founded as the United Service Club in 1885, and renamed to its present title in 1891. It occupies one of the tallest buildings in D.C., originally constructed in 1912. In the 1980s, the façade was retained but the building was gutted, with a skyscraper extension completed in 1987, most of which is given over to apartments. The clubhouse still occupies several of the lower floors, with an impressive array of facilities.
The Army and Navy Club on Farragut Square.
The University Club of Washington, D.C. was created in 1904, and is between the cluster of clubs around the White House, and the Dupont Square clubs. Occupying a substantial and elegant clubhouse since its 1936 merger with the Racquet Club of Washington, the Club has long been the butt of a D.C. saying around the city’s principal clubs:
If you have money, you join the Metropolitan Club.
If you have brains, you join the Cosmos Club.
If you have neither, you join the University Club.
The University Club of Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: D.C. Historic Sites website.)
By far the largest building is that of the National Press Club, formed in 1908, just east of the White House. Today, this is much closer to a professional organisation and conference centre, with thousands of members, and a multiplicity of lecture theatres and banqueting halls across its 14-storey building occupying a block; but it only occupies the top two floors of the facility, with the floors below being given over to officers. The Club itself continues to be a popular conferencing venue as well as a voice for the press corps. It has occupied the same site since 1927, with its present clubhouse completed in 1985.
The National Press Club, on the top two floors of this vast facility.
Altogether smaller and more genteel, as something of a throwback to the small 19th century clubs in private houses, is the Arts Club of Washington, formed in 1916. This is a small but friendly club, only open for certain days of the week, among the cluster north-west of the White House, with an emphasis on practising artists.
The Arts Club of Washington.
A more political club is the Women’s National Democratic Club, founded in 1922 by Emily Newell Blair and Daisy Harriman. It has occupied its mansion near Dupont Circle since 1927. A Republican counterpart is headquartered in New York City.
The Women’s National Democratic Club. (Photo credit: Women’s National Democratic Club website.)
The final historic Dupont Circle club is the Sulgrave Club, founded by Mabel Thorp Boardman in 1932 in the elegant Wadsworth Mansion in the Beaux-Arts style. This continues to be a ladies-only club, which has long been popular with the grand dames of Washington politics, although male guests have full access. It was always intended to be the counterpart to other major ladies’ clubs on the north-east coast, such as the Colony Club in New York, the Acorn Club in Philadelphia, and the Chilton Club in Boston. (The latter is now mixed-sex.)
The Sulgrave Club. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.)
No mention of the Dupont Circle clubs would be complete without inclusion of the former Washington Club, the oldest of the women’s clubs in Washington. This operated from 1891 until its dissolution in 2014 amidst much acrimony and litigation, after the sale of its building for a reported $26 million. The Patterson Mansion, which served as the clubhouse from 1952 until its dissolution, still stands today, in use as a residential building with 92 apartments.
The Patterson Mansion on Dupont Circle, the former Washington Club clubhouse from 1952-2014, seen today.
POST-WAR CLUBS
The post-war years saw the creation of a new breed of clubs, further out east, centred around the Capitol, and explicitly designed to cater to politicians.
The earliest and largest of these was the Capitol Hill Club, otherwise widely known by its nickname, the National Republican Club. Set up in 1951 when Republicans were keen to regroup in opposition to the increasingly beleaguered Truman administration, it still plays a social role in Republican politics today. While it remains organisationally completely independent, it is built as a freestanding wing of the Republican National Committee headquarters, with a bridge linking the two buildings (though I was assured that it is seldom used), and it remains popular with GOP activists, numbering some 5,000 members. The most striking thing throughout the building is the prevalence of elephant imagery: not only are there various elephant statues and paintings, but the Club hosts an extensive collection of 19th century elephant cartoons relating to the GOP. The Club tends, however, to be more popular with the ‘establishment’ wing of the Republican Party as personified by the Bushes, than the MAGA wing so popular now.
The Capitol Hill Club of Washington, D.C., aka the National Republican Club.
Two years after the foundation of the Capitol Hill Club, the Democrats followed suit with the creation of the National Democratic Club in 1953. Like its Republican counterpart, it is housed in a freestanding wing of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, also just south of the House of Representative. It is a much smaller facility, comprising just a restaurant and a bar. But it is no less actively political, and on the two occasions I have lunched there, I have always met Democratic lawyers in town on business related to voter registration drives in their home states.
The National Democratic Club.
Another club close to Congress is not so nakedly party political, although its location attracts a strong political element. The 116 Club (known to its members as the One Sixteen Club) was founded in 1966 in a residential house around the corner from the Senate, and it has something of the character of a very modest – and very discreet – burger bar. Ethics disclosures have shown it to be popular with politicians such as Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and Republican former Attorney-General Jeff Sessions, while a recent Daily Mail piece observed numerous lobbyists and congressional staffers of both parties flitting in and out, as well as listing Hunter Biden as a former member.
The 116 Club on 3rd Street NE.
Further afield is the one surviving club of Georgetown. Georgetown had acquired a notable club in the opening of the City Tavern Club in 1962 in a surviving 18th century tavern; though its recent abrupt closure a few months ago rocked much of Clubland. Still going strong is the City Tavern’s nearby rival, the George Town Club founded in 1966, which underwent a major renovation last year, and which incorporates extensive imported European panelling, artwork and furniture.
The George Town Club in Georgetown. (Photo credit: Alex PennCove Tucker, on Google Images.)
A more recent venture is the City Club of Washington which opened in 1987, as part of the Texas-headquartered ClubCorp chain of nearly 200 clubs across the USA, which rebranded as Invited Clubs in 2022. It is located east of the White House.
The City Club of Washington. (Photo credit: Tagvenue website.)
THE NEWEST CLUBS
Like many global cities, D.C. has recently seen its fair share of fashionable new proprietary clubs opening up.
The first of these modern clubs was WineLAIR, which debuted in 2020, in the city’s West End. This is a unique venture, linked to the WineBANK mini-chain of wine-themed clubs across various German cities and wine-growing regions. Alongside WineBank in Vienna, it is the only one of the clubs situated outside Germany. A bold experiment with the club model, it gives members the chance to warehouse their own wines on-site, as well as offering an extensive menu of varied wines from around the world.
WineLAIR balances comfortable modern decor with optimised wine storage. (Photo credit: Potomac Construction.)
In 2021, The Gathering Spot followed, as the second branch of a club originally founded in Atlanta. Since then, the Club has opened a branch in Los Angeles, and membership communities (which may develop into clubs) in Chicago, Charlotte, Detroit, Houston, and New York City. The emphasis is on events spaces.
The Gathering Spot. (Picture credit: Washington.org)
The most recent addition to the Washington clubscape is Ned’s Club, Washington, D.C., part of the London-based Soho House empire which has drawn attention in recent years for its aggressive international expansion, currently embracing 43 clubhouses. The venture is based in part on Soho House’s The Ned in London, and occupies three floors of The Walker Building, a 1937 office block just north of the White House and east of Lafayette Square. Construction and development is well underway – as is recruitment – with the opening date variously given as Winter 2024, or in time for the next presidential inauguration (January 2025). But the considerable press attention already given to it speaks to the ongoing interest and demand for clubs in Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. THEROZ,
I look forward to your comments on New York clubs. I remain a non-dues paying Emeritus Member of The Explorers Club and Squadron A. I was a long time member of The Coffee House and the Downtown Association.
Regards,
Ron Rosner
Correction: Ron