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The 10 Best Private Clubs
From New York to Seattle, Worth looks inside the country’s finest clubs for socializing, networking and getting away from it all.
01. SOHO HOUSE NEW YORK 29-35 9th Ave., New York (212.627.9800)
This is the original American offshoot of the London club, and its membership is a mix from the fashion and entertainment industries plus a clutch of expatriate English tabloid reporters who keep the bar busy. The club also has 24 hotel rooms for out-of-town guests, a rooftop pool and lounge, and a 44-seat screening room. Other spaces feature British country-house nomenclature: Games Room, Drawing Room and a day spa called The Cowshed.
Join if … you’re cool, but ambitious. Or vice-versa.
Membership applications are available on the club’s website. A basic membership costs $1,800 a year.
sohohouseny.com
02. NORWOOD CLUB 241 West 14th St., New York (212.255.9300)
Confined to a single Greek Revival townhouse in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, Norwood is intimate and stylish. Facilities are limited—a restaurant, bars and lounges on more than one floor and a lovely garden patio in the back—though it functions as more of a nightclub than a sober retreat. On some nights there’s a DJ; on others, a string quartet. An upstairs “studio” is used as a screening room and concert hall, with easels for guests who feel the sudden need to paint. Co-founder Alan Linn was formerly a manager of Blacks, a London club. Norwood has aspirations to be known as a bohemian club. Its application asks, “What is your involvement with the Creative Arts?” and “Who would you most like to collaborate with?”
Join if … you’re indie and artistic.
norwoodclub.com
03. THE SETAI CLUB NEW YORK 40 Broad St., New York (212.968.8880)
An oasis for financial-sector warriors one block from the New York Stock Exchange, this is a social club inside the Setai Hotel and luxury condo tower and a sister facility to the original Setai in Miami. The atmosphere is Wall Street all the way—with a streak of high-end Asian-fusion serenity. There’s a world-class spa and a fine new restaurant, SHO Shaun Hergatt. The concierge service promises secured admission to nightclubs and “customized art tours for novice collectors.”
Join if … you need a retreat from the Street.
Membership is limited to 500 people, with a waiting list that gets drawn from quarterly as needed. Yearly rates are $5,000.
setainy.com
04. COSMOS CLUB 2121 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. (202.387.7783)
While the District has more than its share of old-line havens for power brokers (the University, the Metropolitan and the Army-Navy clubs all come to mind), the slightly threadbare grandeur of the Cosmos Club befits its clientele, drawn largely from the ranks of academia, media, think tanks and, occasionally, the U.S. Supreme Court. How many other clubs publish a yearly journal of members’ essays on “important and timely issues?” Since its inception in 1878, Cosmos members have earned 29 Nobel Prizes, 51 Pulitzers and 42 Presidential Medals of Freedom.
Join if … you’re an inside-the-Beltway lifer.
Membership by invitation only. Residents pay an initiation of $1,800 and annual dues of $2,068; nonresidents, $1,200 and $1,034. Residents under 45 pay an initiation of $900 and annual dues of $1,034.
cosmosclub.org
05. THE CLIFF DWELLERS 200 South Michigan Ave., Chicago (312.922.8080)
The Cliff Dwellers, founded in 1907, classifies members by the cultural arena in which they work: Architecture, Drama, Literature, Painting, Music, Sculpture and Lay Member (a recognition that some members’ greatest contribution to the arts is financial). Members sponsor an artist-in-residence program and a nonprofit foundation that raises money for the arts. The main dining and performance area, known as the Kiva, has a communal table during lunch for Cliff Dwellers who want to join others in conversation.
Join if … you’re bohemian—or would like to be.
Joining requires the sponsorship of two Cliff Dwellers in full standing, though applicants new to town may contact the membership committee by letter. Dues are $130 a month, with slightly lower rates for actual practitioners of the arts.
cliff-chicago.org
06. THE JONATHAN CLUB Town: 545 South Figueroa St., Los Angeles (213.624.0881);
Beach: 850 Palisades Beach Rd., Santa Monica (310.393.9245) A person who joins the Jonathan, the second-oldest club in Los Angeles, can opt to become a member at two clubhouses—one downtown and one on the beachfront of Santa Monica. Downtown is an elegant affair with library, grill room, tap room, indoor pool and rooftop Tuscan Terrace. At the beach: sand, palm trees and deck chairs.
Join if … Entourage isn’t your scene.
Last year the recession prompted the Jonathan to offer a promotional rate of $2,009— instead of the standard $7,500—for use of the town facility.
jc.org
07. THE CONCORDIA-ARGONAUT CLUB 1142 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco (415.673.9522)
This elaborately furnished club is pedigreed but not snobby. It was established in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake by merging the Argonaut (for German-Jewish tycoons) with the Concordia (for ambitious Jewish wholesale merchants like Levi Strauss). Gentiles began joining in the 1950s, German food was phased out in the 1960s and women were permitted in the 1970s (requiring men to finally don bathing trunks in the pool). The club features a famous buffet in the dining room, a library, a lounge with an “honor bar,” a gym and organized basketball games three times weekly.
Join if … you’re putting down roots in S.F.
The Concordia- Argonaut long limited membership to 650, but is more receptive to new members now— check the website for info. Initiation runs $3,000.
concordia-argonaut.com
08. THE DUQUESNE CLUB 325 Sixth Ave., Pittsburgh (412.391.1500)
It’s as establishment as a place can get, dating back to when Pittsburgh was an establishment town—the Duquesne Club was founded in 1873 by Andrew Carnegie and others; Henry Clay Frick was an early member. The Duquesne is big, with roughly 2,700 members who work mostly in business. There are 35 corporate suites and a President’s Room, which only company presidents (steel companies, more often than not)may belong to. The club also has overnight rooms, a tailor and regular theme parties, and was ranked the number one city club in America by Club Leaders Forum from1997 to 2006.
Join if … you want to enjoy the fruits of your success.
Members can apply only by invitation from an existing member. Fees vary. For residents 35 and over, initiation is $9,000 and annual dues, $3,720.
duquesne.org
09. ST. BOTOLPH CLUB 199 Commonwealth Ave., Boston (617.536.7570)
What you would expect of a distinguished Boston club where early members were Cabots and Lodges and Houghtons and Mifflins. Some rules: Cell phone use is restricted to the vestibule or the still-extant phone booth; jacket or tie after 11 a.m., jacket and tie after 6 p.m. Members can take their meals in the library, attend lectures and book groups, and peruse frequent art exhibits. Nonmembers may book the Music Room for private parties with a member’s sponsorship.
Join if … you remember what Boston used to be.
Membership is by invitation only and fees are disclosed only when membership is granted.
stbotolphclub.org
10. THE RUINS 570 Roy St., Seattle (206.285.RUIN)
The Ruins has only been around since 1993, but already boasts of having second-generation members. It’s essentially a club for foodies—four dining rooms and a thriving catering service—with an emphasis on Pacific Northwest ingredients. The dining spaces comprise fanciful takes on traditional club design—from the tiny Maisonette (featuring antler chandeliers and a fireplace) and Chocolate Room (brown walls and hunting prints) to the vast dining room (chintz and topiaries) and even vaster ballroom (murals of Plateau Indians and miles of blue velvet).
Join if … you want more than Starbucks and Microsoft.
Individual, dual, corporate and junior memberships run from $1,000 to $5,100 for initiation; $470 to $1,130 for dues. There’s a sliding quarterly minimum for food and drink.
theruins.net
From New York to Seattle, Worth looks inside the country’s finest clubs for socializing, networking and getting away from it all.