Peek Inside the Club You Can't Join, with Jeff Klein
5/14/202659 min
Kara talks to hotelier and hospitality entrepreneur Jeff Klein about the global private club boom. Klein is the founder of the San Vicente clubs, ultra-exclusive, members-only clubs in Los Angeles and New York. Klein explains how our era of loneliness and digital exhaustion paved the way for the resurgence of members-only clubs and why privacy is the ultimate luxury. He and Kara discuss his path from working as a bellman in New York to owning the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood, and how he transformed a run-down “sin bin” into the San Vicente Bungalows. Plus: how Klein plans to grow and scale his business while keeping its soul. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsKara Swisher· Host0:00
It's really hard to get me to come into a club, and one of the famous ones was like, "We'd really like you to have you here." And I was like, "I'd really, like, rather not to go. I'm going to The Hardware Store, which is my favorite club."
Speaker 20:10
It's on.
Kara Swisher· Host0:11
[upbeat music] Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media podcast network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Jeff Klein, a hotel owner, hospitality entrepreneur, and founder of the San Vicente clubs. They're private members-only clubs that have become popular with celebrities and many others in Los Angeles and New York. Klein was early to the now booming private club scene, and he's looking to expand his clubs globally. Before San Vicente, Klein opened several boutique hotels and restaurants, including the Sunset Tower Hotel in Hollywood. He has a knack for taking distressed historic properties and transforming them into chic, distinctive spaces. I wanna talk to Jeff because he has a real joy of entrepreneurship. And I always talk to tech entrepreneurs or maybe media entrepreneurs, but hospitality entrepreneurs are very interesting, and they put together a lot of things. And at right now, there's a real moment where people really are valuing community and spaces and gatherings, and it's something I talk about in my CNN special, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever, about social connections being really important. And I think Jeff has exquisite taste and sort of a joy of life that I think is a wonderful thing to have in an entrepreneur, and he makes beautiful things, and