What really makes a London members’ club work?
Creating a successful private members’ club is hard. If it weren’t, everyone would do it, and the Hospital Club and the House of St Barnabas would still be in operation. Yet new contenders keep emerging, each proclaiming its unique offering which will be the key to its survival and prosperity.
Later this year a new titan in the world of private members’ clubs will emerge when the Pembroke opens at 6-7 Grosvenor Place in Belgravia. The town house is the one-time residence of former Liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; its 50,000 square feet over six stories will make it the biggest members’ club in London’s history, requiring a “significant nine-figure investment”.
Yet there is a nagging feeling that the Pembroke wants to be all things to all men: a feature in The Times dubbed it “London’s first super-members’ club” and a “land grab”. At the same time, the new venture’s owners “want to make it the best club in the world, but without going after the conspicuous Mayfair set”. They hope “to attract a more local membership” but do so by offering “four restaurants, three bars, a nightclub and a specialised cigar lounge”.
The successful London members’ club
Increasingly we are losing sight of what defines and sustains a private members’ club. Some are drawn together by professional or educational identity, like the Army and Navy, the Oxford and Cambridge and the Cavalry and Guards, while others – a dwindling group, perhaps – are explicitly political in nature, including the Carlton, the National Liberal and, to some extent, the Reform and White’s.
Some find a common thread in cultural and artistic milieu, like the Garrick, the Groucho and the Union. Some establishments have found a sustainable clientele through a combination of sheer affluence and exclusivity, especially the late Mark Birley’s foundations at Annabel’s (which has recently trebled profits), Mark’s Club, Harry’s Bar and the Walbrook Club. Birley’s son Robin has continued the trend with 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s. But it is a very difficult trick to pull off. Clubs work according to alchemy, not algorithm.
I have a friend whose father gifted him membership of White’s, but he visited once or twice a year and realised that meant he was paying several hundred pounds a time for a gin and tonic
Creating a community that works is not just a matter of finding deep-pocketed investors then engaging the best staff, trusting the best designers, finding the best suppliers with the most exquisite produce and creating the best stocked cellars. You can achieve all of those things and still give your members the impression that they are diners in a five-star hotel. There must be a vibrancy and collegiality, which is partly but not wholly based on exclusivity, which creates an institution with two separate qualities: a club you want to belong to, and one you want people to know you belong to.
The size and opulence promised by the Pembroke Club does not immediately announce success on all of these fronts. Instead, it has a nagging sense of a “greatest hits” album about it: the most storeys, the biggest floor space, the most accomplished staff from across clubland, different restaurants and bars to cater to all needs. That reflects a narrow understanding of what a members’ club really is. It is not as straightforward as a hospitality venue, because many other places can challenge it on that basis.
It needs to be somewhere its members go frequently, not just in groups but alone, with a strong enough sense of community that you can call in and be reasonably confident of finding congenial company. Somewhere members visit rarely is no club at all: I have a friend whose father gifted him membership of White’s, that loftiest of High Tory strongholds, but he visited perhaps once or twice a year and realised that meant, taking fees into account, he was paying several hundred pounds a time for a gin and tonic.
We are tribal creatures and we seek the company of those with whom we identify. I could go to the Travellers’ on Pall Mall on a weekday evening and have a better-than-even chance of finding people I know, even if not well, or people with whom I share a social connection. If the odds of that are sufficiently high, it suggests you will also find conviviality among strangers if there are no familiar faces.
Clubs aren’t brands: that is too cold and clinical. They are organisms or ecosystems, challenging to achieve, let alone replicate. When you visit, you need to feel special and included. If you don’t, it is not a club in any meaningful sense. It is, if I can put it this way, just another Soho House. The Pembroke Club has a huge task ahead of it.
Read more: Private members’ clubs are the new face of London heritage