I toured an Upper East Side members club for women that costs $3,300 a year, has a strict no-kids policy, and is stocked with $45 CBD gumdrops. Here's a look inside.
Maison, a members club for women and mothers, is located on the northwest corner of 85th and Lexington Avenue.
The entrance is marked by a small gold plaque.
"Maison" means "home" in French.
"I needed a place to regain my balance and to reconnect with the part of myself that wasn't a mother, wife, or caregiver," Wu writes on Maison's website. "I looked around my neighborhood and couldn't find a place that addressed the desires and needs of people like me, so I created one myself."
Wu settled on the name because she wanted the club to feel like your best friend's home. "There's no better feeling than walking into your best friend's apartment and grabbing your own cup of coffee and talking along the way and setting yourself up for lunch," she told me.
This detail separates Maison from more traditional women's coworking spaces like The Wing, she added.
While the street entrance is unassuming, the lobby certainly is not. Walking in, you're treated to a view of scalloped leather wall tiles resembling a mermaid's tail and a gold-accented front desk.
In designing the space, Wu said she wanted it to feel "approachable."
The space is open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday; on the weekends, it's open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Members come in throughout the day.
From there, the lobby opens up into a kitchen and dining area.
The earth-toned space is refined, airy, and flooded with natural light. Wu considers the space one of the biggest perks of membership.
"The thing I hear a lot from our members is that as soon as they walk in the door, they immediately feel calmer. I think that for New Yorkers, and especially women, mothers, and people who just have completely overscheduled complex lives, knowing that you have a place to go where you immediately feel that sense of calm and peace and a warmth and comfortableness— we don't get that [in] very many other places."
The kitchen is stocked with a mix of complimentary and for-purchase food and beverage options.
General Manager Bay Hirschfeld told me that Maison's selection of beverages and pre-made meals is seasonal and that they place an emphasis on healthy and locally sourced options. Outside food and beverages are not permitted in the club.
Beverage options included cans of Recess sparkling water infused with hemp extracts and adaptogens and serve-yourself cups of bone broth.
Peach-lavender kombucha and cold-brew coffee were on tap, and the fridges were stocked with bottles of wine and craft beer.
Everything in the space felt thoughtfully appointed. Case in point: these $25 Porter glasses that match the speckled backsplash.
Kitchen seating options include a long black dining table, plush green velvet couch, terra-cotta-colored window seats and this mod swinging chair that I could easily have fallen asleep in while rocking back and forth in the afternoon sun.
While no members were there during my tour, it didn't strike me as a place where people are typing away on their laptops.
Wu confirmed my hunch. The space is "agenda-less," she told me. It's a space that can be whatever you want it to be. You can work, you can relax, you can fall asleep, you can catch up with other women over coffee, or you can take fifteen minutes for yourself after work before heading home.
Around the corner from the kitchen is a bright hallway filled with work and study spaces, including a row of desks overlooking Lexington Avenue.
The hallway leads into the living area and library, where Maison hosts many of its events.
Events are included in membership, and at the moment, fall into three buckets: wellness, education and brand pop-ups.
Wellness offerings in October included a 30-minute guided meditation, a session with an energy healer to "understand your personal cocktail of male and female energies," and 20-minute manicures featuring non-toxic and vegan polishes last month.
Maison posts its calendar of events on a bulletin board at the club and also shares them in its monthly digital newsletter. Members can sign up for events either on the bulletin board or by email.
In October, Maison hosted a handful of lunch-and-learn seminars that covered a range of topics, from "Parenting through the obstacles of childhood" to "Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Maison's other spaces include a row of phone booths and this very chic, jewel-toned bathroom.
Now, here's the catch: the price. Annual membership is $3,300, which amounts to $325 per month, plus a $275 one-time initiation fee.
For comparison, The Wing membership is $185 per month.
As I left Maison, I exited through the lobby, which took me past a mini retail space stocked with luxury goods curated by Wu.
These included $380 cashmere sweaters ($150 for children's sizes) and $70 pain cream.
Wu told me that having a store has always been a dream of hers, and the retail space is a manifestation of that. She said she enjoys curating items for Maison members who are short on time.
"The discovery of new things sort of gets lost in the shuffle of busy lives and 'I don't have time for this or I have time for that,''' Wu told me.
I was feeling quite zen after just an hour at Maison, but had I wanted to be sure that the feeling would last, I could have picked up $45 CBD gumdrops for the road.
So, would I join Maison if I lived closer to it and had $325 per month to spare? Yes.
Because I was there during ONHY, I didn't get a true sense of its atmosphere on a daily basis. Even so, Maison felt like a place where I could go to clear my head, a home away from home where everything is taken care of — no need to cook or clean up clutter.
And Maison knows its audience: the green-and-pink color scheme, the minimalist decor, the plants, the omnipresent focus on wellness — this place is clearly designed for the modern 2019 woman.
For now, coffee shops serve as my "agenda-less" places to regroup and collect my thoughts, but do they resemble the chic Anthropologie home of my dreams? No, no they do not.
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