New Yorkers didn’t invent the members club. They just decided they couldn’t live without one — or 20.

Long before the current wave, the city already had its own closed circuit. Members clubs have shaped New York social life for more than a century, many of them dating to the Gilded Age, built to impress before skyscrapers closed in around them. Some of those original institutions still stand, occupying prime real estate near Central Park. The Union Club, the University Club, the Colony Club, The Century Association, the Knickerbocker Club, Doubles, the Racquet & Tennis Club, and the Metropolitan Club — whose first president was J. P. Morgan — all had applications and dues, but admission moved slowly. You needed sponsors. You waited. It could take years. They had dining rooms, but that wasn’t the draw. They functioned more like urban country clubs. And for a long time, that held.

Then came Soho House in 2003, the British import’s first North American location landing in the Meatpacking District. It kept the membership model but changed the pace. You could apply, get approved and be inside within months, sometimes weeks. It was selective but social. Sex and the City made it visible; the rooftop pool made it desirable. For years, nothing came close. Ludlow House followed in 2016, with Dumbo House opening in 2018.

In the past few years, a new wave has taken hold. Clubs like Casa Cipriani, San Vicente Club, Maxime’s, Chez Margaux and Crane Club have proliferated, varying in price, access and what exactly membership gets you. They’ve filled two gaps left by the pandemic: the disappearance of “third places,” spaces separate from work and home, and the surplus of empty office space as remote work took hold.

In 2020, as New York emerged from lockdown, Zero Bond opened in a former Brooks Brothers factory at the corner of Bond Street and Broadway. Founded by Scott Sartiano, the handsome downtown restaurateur, the club stretched across 20,000 square feet over two floors, with workspaces, multiple bars, an omakase room and event spaces. It was built for successful people who liked to have a good time. And people were banging down the door to get in.

“I just follow the flow and instincts of what I see going on around New York and my friends and social circles,” says Sartiano, who helmed numerous hot clubs, including Spa, Butter, and 1OAK before opening Zero Bond. “I noticed some macro trends in the business and then some things that were specific to New York that made me think that a members club would work.”

In 2021, Casa Cipriani arrived, drawing a glossy mix of finance types and European jet-setters, with regular celebrity sightings folded in. Inside the 115-year-old ferry terminal, excess is the point: Loro Piana cashmere lining the walls and sweeping views of the Brooklyn Bridge (a roof pool is rumored to be opening this summer). If you can get in, there are rules. No photos in the living room — a policy that tightened after guests snapped pictures of Taylor Swift with Matty Healy — and a dress code that allows jeans, but the expensive kind with no rips. Membership is just as controlled. The club is known to quietly remove members to make room for others. No questions, or complaints, answered.

Around the same time, a different strain of club began to take shape uptown, with significantly higher price points. Aman Club opened in 2022 inside Aman New York, offering a quieter, more private extension of the hotel for a tightly controlled group, where membership has carried an initiation fee of about $200,000, plus annual dues. Casa Cruz arrived the same year from London, where access has been priced between $250,000 and $500,000, bringing a more social, international set to the Upper East Side.

What is a New Yorker supposed to do with that many options? The answer, as usual, is not to choose. There’s no official count, but members will tell you they often hold more than one membership, sometimes two or three. (We spoke to one man who has seven; another who has five.) In a 2022 survey by GGA Partners, a consulting firm for private clubs, more than 60 percent of clubs reported an increase in membership. Is it any surprise, then, that more clubs kept springing up across Manhattan?

By 2023, it no longer was a question of whether the model would take hold, but how many versions of it the city could absorb. ZZ’s Club opened in Hudson Yards from Major Food Group, with interiors by Ken Fulk, offering a polished, high-gloss room for Carbone regulars willing to pay for a more controlled version of the experience. That same year brought Colette to the General Motors Building, with sweeping views over Central Park and a reported $125,000 initiation fee, plus $36,000 a year, for access to the office space and restaurant.

The Twenty Two, another British import; Casa Tua, which was known for its locations in Miami and Aspen; and Chez Margaux, backed by chef Jean-Georges, all opened in 2024. By 2025, the field was crowded enough that new openings had to define themselves quickly. Maxime’s opened on Madison Avenue in March, bringing Robin Birley’s London club world, already established at 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s, to the Upper East Side. San Vicente Club, owned by Jeff Klein, followed in the former Jane Hotel, importing a Los Angeles model built around discretion and a strict no-photos policy.

“I think what we’re doing is really different from most clubs because a lot of them are built to be hot for a moment and we’re built to last,” says Klein. “We’re extremely intentional about who comes in, and we keep the membership very tight so it never feels crowded or transactional.”

There were others that arrived in 2025, as well (perhaps none that made quite as big of a splash as SVC), including Crane Club, The Moss, Kith Ivy and a splattering of others.

“I definitely think there is still room for new members clubs in New York,” says one seasoned head of membership at an A-list club in the city. “I just think the problem is we’re all competing for the same 4,500 people [whom everyone wants] as members.”

Last year saw the sudden closure of NeueHouse, a once white-hot club and co-working space whose membership spanned Hollywood, media, fashion and tech. The bankruptcy filing cited unspecified “legacy liabilities,” but it surely didn’t help that the club was suddenly swarmed with competitors.

The demise of NeueHouse hasn’t slowed the club rush. Stylus is expected to open as a sound-driven members club built around listening rooms and performance, while The Beginning, planned for Brooklyn Heights, adds to the spread beyond Manhattan. And Annabel’s, which already has a secured space in the Meatpacking District, is preparing to bring its London institution to New York. All are expected to open this year.

So can New York squeeze any more clubs in? London, the city New York has largely borrowed the model from, has more than 130, according to a 2025 report. We may just be getting started.

“Do I think that it’s saturated already? I don’t think so,” says Sartiano. “You know, New York is a big city with lots of people who have lots of different expectations. With the diversity here, there’s plenty of more room to grow. People like the sense of community.”

Klein echoes that sentiment: “I actually think there’s going to be a lot more. Everybody is so lonely, we’re so ‘connected’ through social media and the internet, that we’re disconnected. People are just lonely and they need a community. We used to have churches and town halls and, as gay men, we had communities in nightclubs and in other areas and whatever, but now there’s nothing, and you feel so empty.”

So we won’t be reaching peak members clubs anytime soon?

“No, this is the beginning.”

This story appeared in the May 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.