A place to Belong

Private members’ clubs have been around for a long time, but in Los Angeles, they have started to feel like something different. Soho House is probably the best-known example, but it is now part of a much bigger world of places built around membership, community, and a certain way of spending your time. It raises an interesting question: Has social life in Los Angeles become something you subscribe to?

The idea itself is fairly simple. You pay for access to a private space and the community around it. A visit does not necessarily have one clear purpose. You might come in for coffee, stay to get some work done, meet someone later on, and end up spending much more of the day there than planned.

Depending on the club, that can easily extend into a workout, time by the pool, dinner, or one of the events happening that evening. The point is not necessarily to come for one particular reason. It’s about having a place you can keep coming back to.

MORE THAN A PRIVATE CLUB

Soho House helped make this version of the members’ club familiar to a much wider audience. The first Los Angeles House opened in West Hollywood in 2010, followed by locations in Malibu, Downtown LA, and another in West Hollywood.

But the concept extends far beyond Los Angeles. Soho House has expanded to cities around the world, while the appeal of exclusivity, community, and belonging has continued to grow. The spaces are different, but the basic idea remains similar: create a comfortable place to eat, drink, work, and spend time with other members in a creative and inspiring environment.

There is still an element of exclusivity. Membership requires an application, and the spaces are intentionally separate from the public. But that is only one part of what makes the model interesting.

Other Los Angeles memberships have taken the same idea in different directions. The Aster in Hollywood combines workspaces, dining, fitness, and events. HEIMAT puts training and wellness much closer to the center, with a gym, pilates, yoga, a spa, rooftop pool, restaurants, and social spaces.

Although these are different concepts, they offer something similar. Not just access to facilities, but access to a particular environment.

A VERY LA KIND OF ROUTINE

That idea feels particularly natural in Los Angeles. A morning might start with a run, followed by coffee, a few hours of work, lunch somewhere nearby, and eventually dinner or drinks with friends. Work, movement, wellness, and social life do not always feel like completely separate categories.

The newer generation of clubs fits directly into that rhythm. You can work out and stay afterward. You can have coffee, open your laptop for an hour, meet someone for lunch, and stay longer than you originally planned.

HEIMAT is probably one of the clearest examples. It starts with fitness, but the environment around the workout is almost as important as the workout itself. There is somewhere to eat, somewhere to work, somewhere to recover, and somewhere to spend time.

And in Los Angeles, that mixture makes sense. The city has built a lifestyle around movement, food, wellness, work, and social life existing alongside one another. A membership brings several of those things together, but it also creates a clear boundary around who gets to take part.

High fees and selective admission can make these clubs feel less like open communities and more like carefully curated social circles.

A SPACE TO CREATE

For creative people, there is another side to these places that is harder to measure but can have a noticeable effect once you experience it. The surroundings matter.

The interiors are usually designed to feel warmer and more considered than a traditional office. Comfortable seating, art, books, music, and carefully designed communal spaces can make working feel less rigid and leave more room for ideas to develop naturally.

But perhaps the bigger influence comes from the people around you. At a place like Soho House, you might be working next to someone writing a script, developing a brand, editing a film, preparing a shoot, or simply figuring out their next idea.

You do not necessarily have to speak to them for that atmosphere to have an effect. There is something motivating about being surrounded by people who are also in the process of creating something.

Someone opens their laptop beside you. Another meeting turns into a conversation about a new project. Two people exchange ideas over coffee. You begin working on your own thing and, almost without noticing it, become part of the same energy.

That can make these spaces feel very different from working alone at home.