In Da Club
By Brahms Chouity
“Brahms ol’ chap, care to join me down at the Savile Club for a round of Mimosas and a spot of brunch? Just make sure you’re looking spruce.” These words still echo chillingly in my head. It was 1997 and a very dear childhood friend of mine, Rory Lapidus, prodigal descendant of the infamous fashion house and self-proclaimed “last-of-the-dying-breed-of-proper-English-gentlemen” asked me to join him for a bite at London’s most illustrious private gentlemen’s club. Nothing could have prepared for the ceremonial hidebound experience.
While most of you are quite familiar with the concept of private gentlemen’s clubs, I bet a number of you are picturing some dark, smoky, townhouse mausoleum, where Jeeves the beloved butler occasionally dusts the club’s members and checks for a pulse every so often. But does that image still hold true?
From the day Pittsburgh City’s Duquesne Club opened its gates in 1873, captains of industry have paraded through them, namely the all-male, all-white likes of Schwab, Carnegie, Rockefeller and Mellon. Essentially an English institution that came to prominence over a century ago, private clubs were grounded in the ethos of what it means to be a proper gentleman: code of honour, dress, conduct, elocution and good taste. To preserve exclusivity, membership was contingent on an invitation from an established member, which through the years, granted these clubs a system of legacies, cultivating many generations of the same family.
Astonishingly (to me at least), these private clubs continue to thrive in an age of egalitarianism and fierce competition. They still entice the world’s rich, powerful, and successful while still feeling like fossilised remnants from Jay Gatsby's day. But more than just bragging rights are at stake here. Belonging to the right club still confers a measure of prestige and status. It allows access to the most powerful and connected and is great for network-hungry bankers, lawyers, plastic surgeons, while providing a way to impress clients and hobnob with nabobs.
The grandest clubs are predictably the most secretive and inaccessible. It takes a year or more for prospects at Duquesne, regarded as the world’s most prestigious city private club, to gain approval, assuming of course, they have a written affidavit from five members, boast a prestigious pedigree and don't mind paying the 7,500USD initiation fee, 175USD in monthly dues, plus 55USD/month for the fitness centre. At the infamous Bohemian Club, all-male candidates are literally ‘dying’ to be a part of this 150-year-old San Francisco-based haunt. The waiting list is so long that candidates – who are compelled to hold their horses for over 20 years – are middle-aged by the time they finally become members.
However, not all have survived the death of the three-Martini lunch and tax-deductibility rules that once favoured lavish business spending. And although these old world social clubs still command the scene, times are changing as are the interests of younger generations. Instead, smart, lively alternatives, such as London’s White Club and New York’s Cipriani have sprung up to cater to a hipper, more ambulatory crowd. Additionally, the Middle East’s premier gentlemen’s club, Capital Club Dubai, is also set to accept high-profile members in March. These modern private clubs are a luxurious retreat from the day's pressures, a place to mingle with the world’s super-elite and enjoy life’s limitless pleasures.
By the end of our lunch all those years back, the Savile Club’s parochial surroundings, along with Rory’s incessant comments about his seamless chocolate soufflé, nearly choked the life out of me. But with today’s trendier alternatives to the age-old private clubs of yesteryear, I now can confidently suggest, “Rory ol’ chap, love you, but this time, I’m choosing the club!”
World’s Finest Private Clubs: The Duquesne Club (Pittsburgh, USA), The Athenaeum, Pall Mall (London, England), The Tanglin Club (Singapore), The Royal Bachelors' Club (Göteborg, Sweden), The New York Yacht Club (NYC, USA).
