Now 30 years into its reign as one of the world’s most coveted private clubs, Soho House is finally setting up shop in Australia. Events and community are paving the way, whilst the brick-and-mortar Sydney House is being built and a site in Melbourne is scouted.
Private clubs are typically judged by the square footage and luxuriousness of their amenities. Soho House’s ‘Cities Without Houses’ program is blazing a different trail.
The mission began in 1995, when British restaurateur Nick Jones opened the first Soho House above ‘Cafe Boheme’ in London’s Soho district. The space was designed to be a “home away from home” for the thriving Soho creative community.
Fast forward three decades, and ‘Every House’ Soho members can indulge in any of the 48 Houses around the world, with two more to open in Tokyo and Los Cabos later this year.
Fitting out buildings takes time, naturally, so the once-publicly traded – and soon-to-be privatised $4 billion company – has an offering called ‘Cities Without Houses‘ while clubs are being plotted and built in new cities.
“Members are usually creatives that travel,” Soho House’s Global Group Director of Membership, Esther Brown, tells Forbes Australia at a recent ARIAs music industry event in Centennial Park, Sydney.
“So it’s people who want to use the houses when they’re travelling and connect with other creatives when they’re away. They feel comfortable and at home, like they’re going into a community that’s already built for them.”
Sydney’s ‘Cities Without Houses’ community has been operating for seven years, providing members with access to events scheduled during major events like Vivid, the Biennale, SXSW, and a decadent masked Halloween ball at the Leonardo di Vinci exhibition at the Lume in Melbourne.
Brown says in 2026, ‘Cities Without Houses’ plans to align with creative brands and build out the local communities in Sydney and Melbourne. She says member feedback has revealed a desire for wine tasting tours and Soho House pop-ups at music festivals.
On the brick-and-mortar front, Brown confirms that the team is actively hunting for a site in Melbourne, and that the five-level indoor and outdoor Darlinghurst, Sydney House should be open in the next two to three years.
“We have broken ground and it is underway. We were in there this weekend walking around,” Brown says.
Boomerang expats fuelling the fire
Demand for the ‘Cities Without Houses’ program comes from the local creative communities, and is further fueled by the “boomerang expat” phenomenon: Australians who were Soho House members while living and working abroad who have since returned home and are looking to meet likeminded, community oriented people.
“Sydney and Melbourne are such international cities,” says Sydney-born Hayley Rynehart, who ran Soho House in New York and now oversees the ‘Cities Without Houses’ program in Australia.
“There are so many expats and Aussies that have lived abroad and belonged to a local house and held on to it because they knew they still want to have access to the houses.”
Australian-born musician Jessie McLachlan is one such expat.
“I was a foreigner living in America for over a decade. You meet people at Soho House through other people. And it’s just a beautiful network of people with creative capacity,” McLachlan says.
Now living between Australia and Los Angeles, McLachlan was just 16 when she moved to New York to pursue her music career.
“We’re the most connected we’ve ever been in history, but we are not connecting. The wonderful thing about Soho House is you have to show up in person to events in real life. It is the one inherent thing we most desire as human beings.”
That motivation to connect with people is what Brown says she wants to see when vetting potential members.
“We’re looking for people that share our values, people that support the creative industries, or people who feel that they’re a part of it,” says the Irish-born, UK-residing Brown, who knows the Australian culture well from the years she spent living in Sydney.
A creative title is less important than a creative mindset, Brown says.
“I call it the slash generation, people who have one job, but then they’re doing other things on the side. Their job doesn’t have to have a creative title, but in the evenings, they’re writing screenplays, they’re supporting local artists.”
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