Miami’s social scene has gone private as more clubs crop up across the city.
One of the latest is Harbour Club, tucked just slightly away from the Biscayne Bay waterfront in South Beach with a members-only speakeasy and weekly backgammon tournaments. About 40 people have signed lifetime memberships for as much as $55,000 as the richest seek out an exclusive place for dining and meeting others, all with a veil of privacy.
The club, backed by real estate developer Joseph Sitt and co-founded by private club veteran James Julius, is adding another playground for the wealthy who have poured into South Florida in recent years. In 2021, Carbone owner Major Food Group opened ZZ’s Members Club in the Design District. Others quickly followed, including a club at MILA Restaurant called MM, where access starts at $5,000 annually.
Julius, who was part of the team that launched ZZ’s in Miami, moved to open Harbour Club at the end of last year. He has spent years in the industry prior to his Miami clubs, working with Annabel’s and Harry’s Bar in London before he joined Major Food Group in New York.
“I wanted to bring that true sense of a British-style members club to the U.S.,” Julius said. “As we’ve seen over the last few years, there’s been a lot of membership clubs open, but they really are clubs that you just pay to go for dinner, and you don’t feel like you’re part of a community.”
To build out Harbour’s network, Julius worked to find 40 members willing put in an investment of $40,000 for singles to $55,000 for couples to gain a lifetime membership. After he raised about $2 million with those lifetime deals, he asked those individuals to suggest 10 to 20 potential people who could join for an initiation fee of as much as $9,000 and an annual charge of $2,500 for singles and $4,000 for couples.
About 99% of Harbour Club’s members are local or live in Miami for at least six months and one day of the year — the Internal Revenue Service requirement for being considered a resident of the state. Some members are billionaire businesspeople, but others are in the arts and politics, said Sitt, who’s chairman of Thor Equities and has invested in the club in his personal capacity.
What they share in common is that they’re “folks that might learn from each other or want to grow with each other,” Sitt said.
Like some of its peers, Harbour has a restaurant that’s open to the public, called a’Riva, in addition to its members-only Palm Room speakeasy and Nikai Lounge restaurant. The club hosts weekly backgammon tournaments and a handful of guest speakers and other events each week.
The Miami area is expected to get even more private clubs. Over on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Casa Cipriani and Aman are developing buildings about one block apart that will include members-only clubs along with luxury condos and hotels. And at the 830 Brickell office tower, where tenants include Citadel and Microsoft Corp., developer OKO Group — which is also behind Aman — is aiming to open a private club by the end of the year.
Sitt, meanwhile, is looking to open private clubs in other cities where he’s developing high-end buildings. His company, Thor, is planning one at Bazaar House by José Andrés, a hotel and restaurant complex in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood.