When the Rainbow Room, the glitzy restaurant atop Rockefeller Center, shuttered a week ago and blamed slowing business and the economy, it might have given the impression that the city's elite are scaling back on luxury spending. After all, sales at Saks dropped by 19 percent last month. So where, oh where have all the rich people gone? As it turns out, private membership spots like the Core Club, Soho House and Norwood are experiencing a revival in these lean economic times—because New York's movers and shakers are not so much cutting back as moving their party indoors.
"Consciously or unconsciously, people don't want to look flashy in this environment," says socialite Euan Rellie, one of the founding members of Soho House, a members-only club in the Meatpacking District. "People want to look grounded." But New Yorkers who haven't lost their expensive tastes are discovering that they can cultivate the "grounded" look and still enjoy $350-a-pop bottle service within their private clubhouses, where anyone who sees them is equally guilty of spending when spending is no longer cool.
In fact, the Soho House membership waiting list has ballooned to 3,000 people (there are currently about 5,000 members). At the Core Club, the private members-only lodge that exists behind an unmarked door on East 55th Street and Madison Avenue, suddenly "you can't get a seat in the dining room at lunch," says Jennie Saunders, who founded the club in 2005 when Wall Street was flush with cash and the real estate market was booming. The club, which costs $50,000 to join and then $15,000 annually, has maintained its 90 percent retention rate (one recent dropout, however, is Bernie Madoff's son Mark although a spokesman for the club declined to say how the relationship was terminated). Members include business moguls Harvey Weinstein, William Lauder and Ron Burkle, as well as Bill Clinton and fashion designer Tory Burch, according to a membership list obtained by Page Six Magazine.
Photo: Victoria Will
CORE CLUB: The lodge's event spaces, hairstylists and spa services are booked solid.
The Core Club is based on an Atlas Shrugged-like worldview, where the leading creative and industrialist minds retreat away from the public at large to form their own economy. New Yorkers must be recommended by existing members to join this nexus of power players from the worlds of finance, real estate, film, fashion and politics. If the conversation turned to architecture, wouldn't it be helpful if starchitect Richard Meier could chime in? Why argue about the Manhattan real estate market if Vornado chairman Steven Roth isn't there to tell you the latest? Why bother with a nice lunch if celebrity chef Tom Colicchio isn't cooking it for you? (Meier and Roth are members, while Colicchio designs the menu.) The founding idea is that any discussion, as well as any services you need—a personal shopper, a nanny, tickets to St. Barts—can be had through the club. Shopping, working out and socializing could all take place next to other dealmakers. Instead of navigating through the throngs of tourists at MoMA, modern art at the Core Club is rotated every month and comes from the private collections of its members. Just before Christmas, a Keith Haring print hung in the women's changing room and a Kenny Scharf mural dominated the restaurant. The club, which currently has close to 600 members, offers the rich a private place to behave rich without feeling guilty.
It should be noted that the 100-plus founding members of the Core Club—including venture capitalist Vivi Nevo, Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman and developer Aby Rosen and his wife, Samantha Boardman—each invested $100,000 and were supposed to be paid back in full, with interest, after five years, in 2010. Today, there's concern that their money is gone for good. Founder Jennie Saunders tells Page Six Magazine that the club is "converting the founding membership to a lifetime membership with a collection of valuable soft assets" such as spa services and using the facilities for personal events, to pay the founders back.
The Core Club's membership model has all the over-the-top lavishness of a bygone Sex and the City era—the annual dues only give you access to pay jacked-up prices on everything else. After all, lunch entrées like the club's pan-roasted Loup de mer (sea bass) cost $38. But today, many members say the thrill of belonging to a hermetically sealed bunker in Midtown is more appealing than ever.
Photo: Amber DeVos/Patrick McMullan
SOHO HOUSE: Members are retreating to the club to enjoy meals from new chef Neil Ferguson, a disciple of Gordon Ramsay.
"Every time I walk into the club for lunch, I say, 'No recession here,' " says Fred Davis, one of the founding members of the Core Club and a senior partner at the law firm Davis, Shapiro, Lewit & Hayes. Fred, who works with clients such as Kanye West and Linkin Park, says these days he's using the club four times a week, and even hosted the reception for his 140-person wedding at the club last October. Another member, lawyer Adam Gottbetter, says, "I wanted to host a corporate event at the Core Club in December, but they had zero availability for me throughout the month. You hear about everyone canceling their Christmas parties, but no matter what date I chose, the club was booked." On a Tuesday afternoon in early December, the five treatment rooms were all in use, and the hairstylist was booked through the New Year. In comparison, the Frédéric Fekkai salon on Fifth Avenue had availability every day of the week.
Meanwhile at Soho House, "We've had 95 percent of our members renew their memberships," says director of operations Mark Somen. "They like the exclusivity without the pretentiousness." (A 900-square-foot hotel suite that used to rent for $1,500 a night, however, is now available for $900 a night.)
The downtown location has hired a new chef, Neil Ferguson, a disciple of Gordon Ramsay's, to roll out two new menus at the club, and is building a cheese bar in the 96-seat dining room. The club is also bringing in a life coach to host an interactive talk about "kicking ass in 2009" and is chairing a series of interactive book readings, to create a greater sense of community among members. "In a turbulent economic environment, there's an appeal to be looked after and treated like you're important. Refuge and comfort and membership among like-minded people is very appealing right now," says Euan.
Norwood, the newest members-only collective to the Manhattan scene, opened in 2007 in a townhouse on West 14th Street. The club has managed to stay relatively under the radar—presumably, given management's refusal to speak to the press or to post any information about membership on its Web site, just where it wants to be. According to members, there is a joining fee of about $1,000, plus annual dues of $750. But selection is more about who you are than how much money you make. "It's limited to creative types" who are recommended from the inside, says one member. "People want to spend time in places where they feel a sense of connection and community," says a fashion publicist who spends many Friday nights at Norwood, alongside actor Danny Masterson and model–party girl Bijou Phillips. "The upstairs is always packed these days."
The wealthy and privileged might be content to hibernate for the winter—eating, drinking and enjoying Swedish massages sealed up in their fabulous bunkers far from the bargain-hunting, recession-plagued masses. The question is, will this species rouse and emerge in time for Fashion Week, or will they stay cozy until polo season?
