By Sara Ashley O'Brien

Tomas El Rayess wasn't looking to join another private club.

"I've been a member of a country club and I've been a member of Soho House, and I was never fully satisfied," says El Rayess, 49, a culinary medicine chef in Los Angeles. "It was great socially, but it involved only socializing." Everything revolved around alcohol, he says; he wanted a place where he could meet new people and improve his overall well-being. Less drinking, more cold-plunging.

When Hume opened in his Venice neighborhood in 2024, he found what he had been missing. Part gym, part spa and part social club, the space is designed for the wellness-minded and aesthetically conscious. "A luxurious sanctuary with equipment that looks like art" is how a local recommendations site describes it.

At $450 a month with a $500 initiation fee, Hume is pricier than Equinox, but it's also something new: a private wellness club built for the era of self-optimization and sober curiosity. Similar businesses are popping up all over the country, pitching themselves as one-stop shops for workouts, recovery and healthy fun. Membership runs from hundreds to thousands of dollars a month -- and that's assuming you make it through the application process.

At New York's Continuum, where membership starts at $40,000 a year, founder and CEO Jeff Halevy says a committee vets applicants to "make sure that they're aligned with the club, with the health philosophy and in the cultural ethos." New members go through an onboarding process that includes "performance-based bloodwork," a DEXA scan to measure body composition and bone density and metabolic panels. They also receive an Oura ring; Continuum uses the information it gathers to help members optimize their workouts and routines.

Most of these clubs do not request blood samples. They typically ask applicants for links to social-media accounts, short bios and referrals from current members. El Rayess says when he applied to Hume in fall 2024, the process involved a simple questionnaire and a tour of the space, after which he joined for $395 a month with a $500 initiation fee. Now, in addition to hot-yoga classes, core and mobility exercises in the gym, and cycling between the sauna, steam room and cold plunge, he gets writing done at the rooftop cafe and attends Saturday socials, where members are allowed to bring guests.

Business owners are betting that the wealthy and wellness-obsessed will pay more for an elevated, social experience.

"Instead of going into a gym, where you can smell rubber and hear people grunting, I wanted to have it feel like a mix between a home and an art gallery," says Sandy Bole, the co-founder of Hume, over a foam-top pistachio-milk matcha. "The home is really welcoming and cozy, and the art gallery is inspiring and a little bit more edgy." The name stems from the French word humer, which means to sense or smell.

"It's gotta be warm and almost womblike in a way that you feel very appeased as soon as you walk in, and then you bring your guard down," says Bole, a native of France. He says that the club recently capped its membership to make sure the space doesn't feel crowded.

When Krista Berlincourt, 39, first heard about Hume, she was skeptical. "I was wary this would feel like an Instagrammy cesspool," she says. "Genuinely, I was worried it would be full of people on their phones." (There are no phones allowed in Hume's classes, she's since learned.)

But Hume won her over when several of her favorite instructors from other studios joined to teach. Being part of a club has given her back some of the perks of a full-time job, like watercooler conversation.

"That combined with the vibe of a spa," she says.

Los Angeles has become a playground of private wellness clubs: Three miles north of Hume is the Proper Hotel in Santa Monica, which launched its own club in March. Members pay $6,000 annually (and a $2,500 initiation fee) for access to its newly revamped gym, recovery suite, lounge and fitness classes.

Brad Korzen and Brian De Lowe, who co-founded the Proper with Alex Samek, decided to open the hotel's wellness offerings to nonguests after the Palisades fire. People who had evacuated their homes and temporarily moved into the hotel wanted continued access to its top-of-the-line facilities after they left. As wellness enthusiasts themselves, Korzen and De Lowe got it -- and the idea of another revenue stream certainly didn't hurt.

Santa Monica's Proper Club has just under 100 members to date. A second location at the Proper Hotel in Austin, Texas, has about 75 members. Both clubs intend to cap membership at around 200. There is a waitlist, the founders say; prospective members must meet with the club team in person before they're accepted.

Before the Proper's club opened, content creator Julia Corot says she visited the San Vicente Bungalows, a private club with locations in Los Angeles and New York. "It's more of a restaurant," she says, with lounges where people can work or chat. What she wanted was a space where she could socialize and "play sport."

Heimat, the West Hollywood application-only wellness club, appealed to her. In addition to group classes, a Himalayan salt dry sauna, and a recovery and beauty spa, there's a rooftop pool and a restaurant that's open to the public. Membership runs $350 monthly (with a $350 initiation fee), but Corot says "it's too far away for me to cross the 405 [freeway] every day." ("Many of our members that live across town tell us they find the drive worthwhile because it becomes their one destination for everything they need in a day," a Heimat spokesperson says.)

Corot, 40, instead joined the Proper's club as a founding member, paying $5,000 for the first year, plus the $2,500 initiation fee and taxes. "It's a social club, but more for singles," she says.

In New York, the lifestyle brand Kith is opening a members-only padel and wellness club in Greenwich Village called Kith Ivy. It will feature a fitness center and a Giorgio Armani luxury spa with high-end treatments, as well as a Jacuzzi, sauna, steam rooms and cold plunges. Members can nosh on Moroccan Mediterranean fare from Cafe Mogador in the "living room" of the space. There will also be a "tonic bar" from Erewhon, featuring the gourmet L.A. grocer's famously expensive and elaborate smoothies.

Also in the neighborhood is Continuum, which opened in September 2024.

"I mean this in the most humble way possible, but what we're doing is one of one," says Continuum's Halevy. The brand made a splash when it launched thanks to its eye-popping $100,000 annual membership -- a price that makes the current starting rate of $40,000 sound reasonable. "I didn't wake up one morning and say to myself, My next business is going to be yet another place where wealthy people can hang out," Halevy says.

Continuum sees itself as a tech company first. "We've got a proprietary technology that takes in an unparalleled stack of biometric data and is able to use that data to drive the member journey," Halevy says.

That data allows the club to make precise recommendations. "Your poor night's sleep can literally change the amount of weight on a single set that you might be doing in your exercise program the very next day," Halevy says.

The facility offers premium gym equipment, full-body red-light therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a Finnish sauna, cold plunges, a float therapy pool, and a team of coaches and clinicians to assist members at no extra cost.

"Our model is all-inclusive," he says. Entrées, light bites and smoothies are all available on-site for members at no extra cost. Halevy says the club's capacity is 250 members, which it expects to hit in 2026. He's already eyeing a second location.

Write to Sara Ashley O'Brien at sara.obrien@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 19, 2025 12:00 ET (17:00 GMT)

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