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Property developer and restaurant entrepreneur Adrian Fini has launched a new private members’ club in the city which hopes to build a membership of artists, journalists, actors and creatives.
It is a club for all genders, and with its modest $1200-a-year dues, it should attract an egalitarian membership.
Lawson Flats is Perth’s latest private members’ club.
Unlike Melbourne’s storied gentlemen’s clubs full of ruddy-cheeked businessmen eating boarding school lunches and mumbling into their claret about the working classes, Perth has never had a Melbourne Club or an Australia Club where gents can drink port in wing-backed chairs and catch up with their fellow Collins Street commandos.
Perth, of course, has the Weld Club (men only) and the Karrakatta Club (women only) which date back to the 19th century and whose respective memberships are mostly cheery older folk from all walks of life, rather than just business tycoons, private school old boys, KCs and race horse owners.
Fini’s latest offering, the Lawson Flats Club at the art deco Lawson apartment building on The Esplanade, comes hot on the heels of his first members’ club, Mello House at the State Buildings.
It is a new look for private members’ clubs which, in part, takes its cue from the Soho House portfolio of posh egalitarian clubs across the world.
Mello House was also meant to be a Perth version of London’s artsy home to the West End’s luvees, the Garrick Club, founded in 1831 where “actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms”. Stephen Fry is a member.
While Mello has an extensive and important art collection and regularly puts on events like recitals, literary talks and book readings, its rooms are often filled with business people having meetings, complete with white boards. It’s a broad church, as John Howard was wont to say.
Mello House’s arts and culture manager, Ali Bodycoat, sits on the cultural committee at Lawson Flats. She maintained that clubs like Lawson and Mello were important to the culture of a city.
“They bring people back to Perth … all those diverse, brilliant and creative people who live in Perth can find common ground and a sanctuary at Lawson,” Bodycoat said.
“This is why it’s so important that spaces like this are created. It’s a home away from home with an intellectual and artistic bent but also a wellness program with a gym, steam room and quiet places.”
Lawson Flats is likely to attract a younger crowd, “although we expect a membership with ages ranging from 19 to 90″.
This is borne out by different attitudes to media coverage. There is no photography allowed at Mello – ostensibly to protect members – and it has no signage, you enter through a nondescript door.
But at Lawson Flats, photos of its stunning interior have been made available to the media and, yes, there’s signage on the door.
Like Soho House, Lawson Flats has a six-day-a-week restaurant open for breakfast, lunch, cocktails and dinner.
It’s called Luis’, an homage to the formal, red velvet-draped restaurant of the same name which served the top end of town for decades from its ground-floor space in the Lawson apartments building. Luis’ closed in the 1990s.
What does a Lawson Flats member look like?
“They are intelligent, interested people, people who want their mind to be challenged, who are excited about ideas and the arts,” Bodycoat said
“It’s essentially a social club. It’s not closed. It’s open and welcoming and also a quiet place.”
At $1200 a year, Lawson Flat’s fees are more affordable to those not among the top end of town.
Around the corner, the Weld Club is the OG private men’s club in Perth. It too provides a sanctuary for its members, and while some commentators complain that it is a home for rapacious capitalists and the city’s powerbrokers, its membership suggests otherwise.
There are some big names on the books, but equally its membership is made up of blokes who have not read Ayn Rand and are not whipping the servants or plotting to oppress the working classes.
Mostly you’ll find Weld Club chaps enjoying the old-school formality, the genteel quietness and the company of others over a bottle from the club’s legendary wine cellars.
Memberships are rarely offered. It takes nine members to put you up, and while the Weld Club will not divulge annual dues, it’s way north of Lawson Flats’ comparatively meagre $1200 a year.
The women’s-only Karrakatta Club opened its doors in 1894 and is the longest established club for women in Australia.
Like the Weld Club, it offers a range of activities for members including weekly “Lyceum” talks with topics the club says are predominantly literary, general, travel, and artistic in nature.
In the world of sports, the WACA remains top dog of the city’s clubs with memberships handed down from parents to sons and daughters. Want to join WA’s home of cricket? Get on the waitlist.
Perth’s most prestigious sports club is the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club at Peppermint Grove.
It’s all about running regattas and sailing events, up to five days a week during yachting season, and supporting young yachtsmen and women.
It rolls out a packed program of member events, parties, formal evenings and wine dinners.
RFBYC prides itself as a family sporting club with a good restaurant, the Bowline Bistro, a ballroom and a well-stocked bar.
The club’s Wednesday twilight sailing race is a casual highlight of the week, followed by a cook-your-own barbecue on its expansive lawns.
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