There were no pictures of Lady Gaga at 3am. They were hanging near the wall with various members of Arcade Fire and Eddy Vedder. There are no pictures of Kevin Costner. Single and ready to interact at the bar. The softly lit dining room banquet has no images of Cher and Laurin Hill. The owner of San Vicente West Village said last Friday, despite the fact that some of Hollywood's biggest names came to the party after a Saturday night live 50th anniversary concert in Radio City. I had confirmed that no paparazzi could be found in. Music Hall.
If any of these images had glowed across the internet, it might have built a sense that the first event at SVB, officially opening in March, was an age-human.
Perhaps that's the point: you had to be there.
Among New Yorkers who are in power and seeking exclusiveness, the upcoming opening of Los Angeles' Best Private Club is greeted with a sense of urgency, second only to the future of democracy.
“Everyone in fashion has been talking about whether or not to join this club and how to get on the list,” says Kendall Wurtz, founder of Jeffries, the crossing of branding and celebrities. I did.
San Vicente West Village is the creator of Jeff Klein, a businessman with a long history in hospitality, opening San Vicente Bungalows Los Angeles in 2018.
In the 1990s, Klein bets that the hotel would have had a nightclub in the 1980s.
In 2004, Klein spent $18 million to purchase the aging Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles. It went on to become the best dining hall in the town of moguls and movie stars (Jennifer Aniston, Jeff Bezos, George Clooney), and for several years it was the famous Oscar party site at Vanity Fair.
Klein has partnered with former magazine editor Gredon Carter at Monkey Bar, a midtown Manhattan restaurant.
However, the true follow-up for Sunset Tower was the San Vicente Bungalows, a club dedicated to members that changed how celebrities could socialize.
The cynician might say the idea was to create a safe space for the town's most famous and most connected people without commemorating those moments with bad iPhone photos taken by tourists It's not possible. (The club requires that all guests cover their mobile phone cameras with stickers for the duration of their stay.) The challenges associated with navigating the Los Angeles sprawl also worked in favor of the club. . With fewer ways to come across people, they settled on choosing it.
The membership fees earned around $4,000, but did not include starting fees ranging from $3,000 to $15,000 depending on your age. Among those who participated were Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Tom Ford.
“When I was in LA, if I wasn't eating at home, I would be in San Vicente. Before that, I was at the Tower Bar,” Ford said last week on the phone. . “I'm like being at home. They know my favorite table and what I like. My Coca-Cola arrives before I ask for it. Jeff is all about everything. I feel its presence in that.
After the coronavirus pandemic, ideas began nibbling on Klein. Will he bottle the magic in Los Angeles and bring it back to the city he left behind?
In a short order, he decides to test his luck at the Jane Hotel, a Red Brick West Village landmark along the West Side Highway.
The blowback and plot from the New Yorkers began as soon as the first invitation to join was extended. The current selection group of members was instructed to invite friends and people they thought they should be members. The email gave these new insiders a rare opportunity to participate without the formal review process most members had received. The membership is vetted by Gabe Doppelt, a British magazine editor who cut his teeth as an assistant to Anna Wintour and Tina Brown. After becoming editor of Mademoiselle, she directed Hollywood coverage in W Magazine and the Daily Beast.
Those who didn't get invited were angry that they weren't invited. Those invited were particularly angry at older people and some of the most creative people who were not wealthy. Future invitees were asked to upload driver licenses so they could determine age-adjusted fees. No one liked it.
San Vicente's annual fees are located in the same stadium as the annual parking lots of other New York City private social clubs, such as Casacy Priani and Cesmargaux. They are much cheaper than the core clubs.
A considerable amount of debate began about whether there was enough juice left in the city. Power in New York City is often as cultural as capital.
“Does this really great thing happen even in public anymore? Isn't it behind the closed doors of another person's house?” A well-connected political consultant who was invited to the club last month and had not yet participated. said John Linesh. “In Manhattan, I don't know that it already exists in Michael's Zagrill Room and Mortimer's era.
But everyone was sniping, and another person was on the way. Also helps ensure success: Klein, according to Kevin Huvan, who has helped lead the careers of many San Vicente regulars, including Aniston, Demi Moore and Jennifer Lopez, as co-chair of the creative artist agency. Unique popularity. “People underestimate goodwill,” he said. He continued to compare Mr. Klein to Joe Allen.
The day after the star-studded SNL party, Jeffreys' Wortz was one of about 1,000 people who attended a hard hat party celebrating the club's upcoming opening.
Among the crowds were power literature agent David Coon, television mogul Darren Starr, actress Zoe Deschanel and political commentator Molly John Fast.
Earlier this week, the magazine editor (mainly because of FOMO) who complained to me about wasting thousands of dollars to get involved is complaining about the long line of court checks.
Even Mr. Klein seemed a bit embarrassed by the size of the crowd. A few feet away he spoke to Star E Previn, Woody Allen's wife.
“It's good that Woody didn't come,” Klein said. “It's too crowded.”
Officially, Klein was not involved in the film. Last December he interviewed the New York Times in connection with the opening of the San Vicente front post base in Santa Monica, California. After publication, Jay-Z asked him why he cooperated on Earth. After all, the central promise of a club is its members' privacy. (Some of them have been suspended to upload photos to Instagram.)
And Mr. Klein had to admit that Jay-Z had the points.
Still, he knew that even in the journalist town he was not completely off the record for weekends. And the opening costs in the $130 million range made him unable to get it back without a press. (“ooof, that's a lot of money,” Huvane said when he said to the numbers.
Therefore, Mr. Klein refused me as his client greeted Lisa Heller, the crisis manager, including Jeff Zucker and Anthony Weiner.
The waiter marched around the space serving crunchy shrimp satay and cappuccino flavored macarons.
Jong Fast and Ms Deschanel went upstairs to watch the cinema, then checked out some of the guest suites, with the hardwood floors in a marsh tint and the linens of the beds, airy and white.
“This is a great place to fool your spouse,” said John Fast. We stopped a bit to admire the pumpkin-colored sofa with a Hudson County atmosphere. “Maybe it's more Casacy Priani.”
