The first time James O’Reilly went to the Russian & Turkish Baths in New York, he thought, “It’s got a kind of gruff charm about it.” A fixture in the East Village for more than 125 years, the facility may be bare-bones, but it’s also a favorite of anybody who considers a steam, a sauna, and a cold plunge the most invigorating of self-care routines. That includes O’Reilly, who was a cofounder of the members-only club and co-working space NeueHouse.
“The first time I went,” he recalls, “I felt just amazing afterward.”
Those hot-and-cold sessions were one inspiration for O’Reilly’s latest venture with cofounder Adam Elzer. The idea behind Lore is deceptively simple: a wellness center with a large walnut-lined sauna and a travertine cold plunge pool, available by way of a monthly membership of less than $200. Self-care is a key part of the concept, O’Reilly says, as is forging a community.
“Our intention is to create a neighborhood bathing club, where people will become regulars,” he says of their first location, in New York’s NoHo neighborhood. (More outposts are in the works, O’Reilly says.)
It’s a riff on the traditional members-only model, to be sure, but also just the latest in a long line of New York openings since 2021: Casa Cipriani, Casa Tua, Crane Club, Fasano Fifth Avenue, Flyfish Club, Maxime’s, the Twenty Two, San Vicente, and ZZ’s Club. (Existing players like Core Club, Soho House, and Zero Bond are meanwhile still going strong.)
“They’re all very different,” says Stacy Fischer-Rosenthal, a member of T+L’s Travel Advisory Board—and of both Fasano and Flyfish. “A lot of my clients want to be members of multiple clubs.”
Driving the trend is a hunger for connection, says Annie Fitzsimmons, an expert in luxury travel at the agency Embark Beyond. “Consumers want to be part of a vetted community,” she says. “They want to socialize and be with their people, with the bragging rights.”
That desire explains why bigger brands are jumping on the trend, too. Six Senses, for example, aims to open a “social and wellness club” called Six Senses Place at upcoming hotels in Bangkok and London. Langham Hotels & Resorts was ahead of the curve with its Eaton Workshop brand, which launched in 2014; it puts screenings, talks, and cultural events at the center of its properties in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. Several more locations are on the horizon, according to CEO Bob van den Oord.
A logical next step, experts say, is a boom in member-oriented hotels. Soho House pioneered the model when it launched more than 30 years ago; it now has 46 locations worldwide in global hubs such as Berlin, Istanbul, London, and Mumbai—as well as island destinations like Canouan, Ibiza, and Mykonos.
Fitzsimmons predicts more members-only hotels are on the way. She notes that interesting concepts such as Yellowstone Club, the properties of the Discovery Land Company, and the Natirar Club at the Pendry Natirar, in New Jersey’s affluent horse country, are on the forefront of the trend. She’s also keeping tabs on José Andrés. The globetrotting chef is working on a new hotel, the Bazaar House, in Washington, D.C. When it opens in 2027, it will, of course, have a members-only club.
A version of this story first appeared in the October 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Just the Few of Us.”
