Arts Club to Follow Rival Private Members Clubs in Expanding Outside of the UK

Date: May 2018

Location: London, UK, Dubai, UAE and Los Angeles, USA

Name: The Arts Club

No. of Keys: We don’t know…we are assuming the three clubs will be residential?

The private members club whose founders include Charles Dickens, in 1863 and Anthony Trollope is planning to expand overseas, opening its first sites outside London in a “multi-million dollar investment”.

The Arts Club said it would be opening a 64,000 square foot members club in Dubai next year (2019), within the new ICD Brookfield Place within the Dubai International Financial Centre district.

It will span across five levels and include a roof terrace and rooftop water feature, as well as three restaurants and bars, a cigar club, art exhibition spaces and a business centre.

Also another site in Los Angeles, on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood the following year, which will have 14 bedrooms, a rooftop swimming pool, screening rooms, restaurants and bars, and an art gallery open for the West Hollywood community.

It is also planning to open a club near Canary Wharf, London, in 2020, and said later this year it will be launching a medical gym in Dover Street, Mayfair, in partnership with health centre Lanserhof.

Alice Chadwyck-Healey, executive director of The Arts Club, said: “The appetite both for first class hospitality and unparalleled art and events programmes is strong in both Dubai and LA, making them the natural choices for our first overseas clubs.

“Our expansion plans have been meticulously thought out and will be rolled out over the next three years, ensuring we continue to offer the levels of excellence that our membership demands.”

The Arts Club’s decision to expand overseas echoes similar moves by rival London private members clubs, such as Groucho Club, which is in talks to lease a building in New York, and Soho House, which is planning to open sites in New York and Hong Kong.

THPT Comment: The original Arts Club in Dover Street has 16 rooms and suites. They offered accommodation back in 1863 when they opened in Hanover Square and even in 1896 when they moved to Dover Street, but the rooms were bombed in WWII in 1940 and were re-opened/rebuilt in 2015.

First Seen: The Caterer