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Almost three years after the start of construction on a roof terrace for the InterContinental hotel in the city center, a restaurant group in San Diego is now ready to present their most ambitious project to date.
Shrouded in secrecy for a long time – even the hotel management was kept in the dark – the 6 million dollar Reading Club is almost finished and is attracting paying members who can exclusively use the 6,000 square meter indoor and outdoor area on the 19th floor of the bay-high-rise watch.
CH Projects, known for other high profile projects like Born & Raised, Ironside and Raised by Wolves, plans to officially open The Reading Club in the first week of September. It now sorts around 1,000 applications for the future 400 membership places.
Fitted with bespoke chandeliers, marbled checkered floors, and vaulted 20-foot ceilings with walnut grinders, the club offers multiple amenities for members including a dining room, private meeting rooms, meditation areas, library and reading room, a wellness director, and access to the hotel pool and Gym. Members enter the club room through a room lined with bookcases.
Ornate neoclassical details define the decor, and the main salon will feature a hand-painted mural inspired by 19th-century landscape paintings by the Hudson River School.
Membership prices range from $ 1,700 to $ 2,600 per year, plus an enrollment fee of $ 484, although subsidies are available to support those who cannot afford the annual cost.
“We don’t want the economic factor to be a reason not to become a member, so we’re going to subsidize that,” said Arsalun Tafazoli, co-founder of CH Projects. “If your values match and the only reason you cannot become a member is for economic reasons, we will subsidize these costs.”
The membership application gives an indication of the coveted values. Among the questions: “What would your autobiography be called?” “What are you doing and why are you doing it?” “What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about yourself?”
CH Projects has control of the entire hotel roof under a lease agreement with Portman Holdings from Atlanta, the co-developer of the InterContinental, which opened three years ago. In addition to The Reading Club, the hospitality group is planning a Roman-style trattoria, Seneca, which will occupy the other side of the roof area. It will likely open a few months after the club, Tafazoli said.
The pandemic, including a COVID-19 outbreak during construction, contributed to development delays, as did the challenges associated with building on a high-rise. CH had to shut down Broadway three times in order to move large parts – including a chiseled mantelpiece – onto the roof with a crane because they did not fit in the freight elevator.
CH Projects’ latest endeavor was born out of a desire, said Tafazoli, to try something different to connect with its patrons and the community.
“It’s not about getting more people into our tent, it’s about how we can go deeper and provide a more personal experience that you can’t get in a public space,” he said. “We are all now in a cultural moment in which we are a kind of vagabond and the boundaries between office and restaurant and home – we want to blur them. It builds on what we are already doing and we wanted to see if we could create an experience that enhances these aspects of our daily life. “
In keeping with the company’s sometimes quirky preferences – like no vodka or ketchup in some of its restaurants – there will be some very specific membership rules designed to encourage more personal interactions. For example, laptops are no longer allowed after 5 p.m. and sharing pictures of the room on social media is not allowed at any time, Tafazoli said.
“You see so many rooms built for the Instagram moment,” he said. “This is not going to be a space that you will see on social media, we want people to get involved in the now. Screens get you out of the moment. “
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