If the Soho House Portland smells new, that’s because it is. At least on the inside.
“It wasn’t until a month ago, they peeled up a lot of the protective layer that was on everything and you started to see the hardwood floors,” said Lemmy Cooper, general manager of Portland’s incarnation of the Soho House, standing in the new, immaculate dining room.
The Troy Laundry Building at 1025 S.E. Pine St., now the home of the Soho House, was an artist studio co-op for almost 40 years. In 2016, the building was sold and most of the some 50 artists there were displaced. In 2019, the current owner, real estate developer AJ Capital bought the building for $15.6 million, aided by tax breaks from being in an “Opportunity Zone.”
Soho House is a worldwide network of about 45 upscale social clubs that are part WeWork, part urban country club for Millennials and Gen Xers, and it is leasing the Troy Laundry Building from AJ Capital.
The building is a brick warehouse constructed in 1914. It may be old, but everything inside is brand new. The gleaming tiles, the hardwood floors, the pizza oven, gym equipment, well-stocked bars, spotless bathrooms and even a photo booth tucked down one hall.
Since plans for a Soho House in Portland were announced, outlets from Eater PDX to The New York Times have been asking: “Does anyone even want this?”
On Thursday, as the club served some of the first 500 members in Portland lunch and drinks and as a large tour traipsed through the lounge area and up and down stairways, the answer appeared to be, “Yes.”
As much as Portlanders may outwardly shake their heads at the idea of a (mostly) members-only billionaire-owned club with outposts in Tel Aviv, Los Angeles and New York City opening in almost aggressively casual Portland, plenty have already signed up to be some of those members.
According to Cooper, days before fully opening, Soho House Portland has 501 members and waitlist of around 1,200 people.
“We open with 500 to start with,” he said. “They’re considered our founding members.”
One of those is photo-based artist and gallery director Melanie Flood. Flood is one of the artists whose work appears at Soho House Portland.
“Soho House for me is a welcome moment during a bleak time in Portland,” Flood said.
“They’ve treated artists well,” she added. “I have a local membership and house credit. My work is beautifully installed and I am amongst many talented colleagues.”
Flood said she’s well aware of what happened with the artists at the Troy Laundry Building, but noted that happened long before Soho House was ever involved in the property.
And, she added, she’s found that Soho House has “done a lovely job getting a diverse range of artists involved – intergenerational, BIPOC, LGBTQ etc., that really makes it feel like they are sensitive to the realities of the racial history of our city and the fact that many of our art institutions/spaces have closed in recent years.”
According to Cooper, this focus on diversity is crucial to deciding who can be a member of the house.
“We go after people in the creative community,” he said, “or people with a creative spirit.”
“From there, we look at everything else demographically,” Cooper said. “We want this space to be very diverse, very inclusive, so we kind of look at all those different demographics, race, gender, sexual orientation.”
A cursory look around the lounge on Thursday revealed a crowd that skewed under 50 but was otherwise more diverse than many places you might find in Portland.
Starting Monday, “every house” members – people who have a membership that gives them access to every one of the houses – will begin to have access to the houses.
For Portlanders, an annual every house membership costs $4,500 and an annual Soho House Portland membership costs $1,950, though it’s cheaper if you are under 27.
There is a $1,000 “introduction fee” which becomes credit towards food and drinks (and bedrooms for houses with those).
Every month, the house will add new members, Cooper said, until they decide they have reached the right amount.
What do members get? Access to different lounge areas where they can work and socialize, access to the gym and locker room, along with a sauna and steam room and access to the bar and restaurant, with chef Matt Sigler at the helm.
Sigler might be best known in Portland for his stellar pasta work at the now-shuttered Reneta, The Oregonian/OregonLive’s 2015 restaurant of the year. But he also helped open famed San Francisco restaurant Flour + Water.
Most recently, he, and Cooper, worked at Oswego Lake Country Club. In fact, Cooper brought a handful of people, including bartenders and a sous chef, from Oswego Lake to Soho House.
At Soho House’s completely nut-free kitchen, Sigler is making pasta and pizza, as well as Soho House classics like the “dirty burger.”
“I’m a dough freak,” said Sigler, in front of the open kitchen that looks out at the bright dining space.
“I love pizza,” he added. “So I’m really excited to get back into pizza.”
The pizza, with a chewy, crunchy crust and generous helpings of salty, stracciatella cheese, is definitely something special and a lot more than you’d expect from a country club. In fact, it makes you wonder if the members of Oswego Lake Country Club knew how good they had it.
But for Cooper, Sigler and their crew, a suburban country club might have been the perfect stop before returning to a more youthful social club. They seem to have coalesced as a group and appear to appreciate the collegial atmosphere of a social club.
The bartenders mixing drinks, including a delicious, sweet pink nonalcoholic number called “Espinosa,” are friendly and engaging and seem to take genuine pleasure, even such a short time after opening, in recognizing members.
On Thursday, they filled drink orders and worked out processes as they chatted with members eating lunch at the bar. At nearby tables, friends greeted each other with laughter. Even a hardened cynic had to admit, the social part of the social club seemed to be happening.
If the question is will Portland embrace a members-only club for the younger set, the answer is clearly, it already has. And when the heated, outdoor rooftop pool opens later this year, the list to join will likely get even longer.
– Lizzy Acker covers life and culture and writes the advice column Why Tho? Reach her at 503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com or @lizzzyacker
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