The Soho House: The Challenger’s Club
Where Challengers of a Feather Flock Together, by Julian Aldridge, Founder, Enact Agency
Private clubs date back to Roman and Greek times. However, the British, masters of exclusivity and the class system, popularized them in the 18th century, where ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ burgeoned across the capital and in pockets in other, less civilized regions of the country. Indeed, the (unbelievably expensive) neighborhood of St James in London is still dubbed ‘clubland’ based on the first establishments like White’s, Brooks, and Boodle’s that set up shop there in the late 1800s.
White’s, ironically founded by an Italian immigrant, Francesco Bianco in 1693, claims to be the oldest continuously running club in Britain. It’s probably also the most exclusive, with many members of Royalty and senior Conservative politicians on its list. Unusually, it still only admits men. Personally, not a place I’d ever want to enter, but that’s just me.
Members-only clubs back in the day had a — well deserved — reputation for overbearing stuffiness, snobbery, and dark, mahogany-lined interiors. Hardly the stuff to get the adrenalin pumping amongst London’s rapidly expanding creative classes in the mid-1990s.
What do Challengers like most? Tradition. Established expectations. Assumed social norms. Anachronistic customs and rules. In…
