The Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington is a historic and adaptive club with a membership and reputation as notable as the city the club resides. The club was founded in 1863 and sits a block away from the White House with a stunning view of the Washington Monument. The Metropolitan Club is recognized on the National Register of Historic Places and throughout its 158-year history has served prestigious members including six U.S. presidents, 21 secretaries of state, 21 secretaries of treasury, as well as numerous representatives, senators, judges and ambassadors.
Despite the celebrated membership, the club maintains a strong culture that separates the public status from the members, allowing them to enjoy the club as a respite from the public eye. Says General Manager/COO Michael Redmond, CEC, CCM, “We don’t pass business cards around here. This isn’t that type of club.”
This member-focused model is at the root of the club’s success and strong tradition. The jacket and tie dress code for men is integral to the club’s history, and despite trends in the industry to shift to a more casual dress code, the Metropolitan Club’s formal approach is fiercely protected by their members, in particular, younger and newer members. What appears as rigid to other clubs is the Metropolitan Club’s strength. With a typical membership wait time of two years, new members know exactly what to expect at the club, and in fulfilling its mission, the Met Club provides that exact experience. As Redmond puts it, “We set the expectation and we fulfill it.”
While the club prides itself on its rich history, the board and leadership team understand the need to evolve. Over the last 17 years, the Metropolitan Club has invested approximately $30 million in capital improvements to ensure the security and well-being of its facilities for the future, and beginning six years ago, the club set out on a massive, $11 million capital expense to update the club’s cooling towers, HVAC and roof. As a result, the club has built its foundation for the future with one of the best views and amenities in Washington.
The Rooftop
The rooftop is equipped with a Terrace Bar and comfortable seating, umbrellas for shade and high-top tables, making for a casual setting that can serve more than 150 members in a night. The rooftop only offers beverage and cigar service in order to make it a cocktail venue and preserve the traditional function of the club’s iconic dining room. Redmond also explains the decision to limit any food service to just hors d’oeuvres preserves the quality of food, “Every floor that a meal has to travel means the food is losing quality.” The cocktail menu was carefully crafted by Beverage Manager Elias Yemane and Assistant General Manager Emmet Gallagher, and the team is working on new programming for the rooftop.
Since opening on April 5, 2021, the results have been impressive, impacting the entire club. There is a two-week wait to get a table on the rooftop. “It has created an energy throughout the rest of the building,” says Redmond. Having members travel up to a scenic rooftop and back down to formal dining provides a literal kinetic energy to the club as people utilize the entire facility and move throughout. The rooftop has also provided a stimulus to the club with a capture ratio of members having dinner after enjoying the rooftop of well over 50%. “It has certainly ensured our destiny is strong coming out of the pandemic,” adds Redmond.
The Terrace Bar also signals a potential shift in club programming. Historically, the Met Club has been used more for daytime services, however, Redmond notes the rooftop will play a key role in pivoting to an emphasis on nighttime programming. This summer, the club also plans to host live musical performances during evenings. As Redmond points out, there are numerous rooftops in the area, but few are built for the casual evening experience.
Additionally, the new amenity gives rise to the prospect of having just spouses of members at the club, not both member and spouse.
The rooftop seamlessly meshes with the club in a way that appears both new, and always there, even with the massive work it took to complete the project. “It’s in the tradition of the Metropolitan Club and about the members enjoying it,” says Redmond. He adds, “It’s about the people in the chairs, not the chairs.”
Planning and Process
Emerging from the pandemic with the ideal city club amenity came after years of planning and discussion. Redmond recalls conversations about the roof dating back several years before the board’s 2015 decision to move forward with construction. However, once it was clear the HVAC system and roof needed to be renovated, simply putting the rooftop back the way it was would have been an error, says Redmond. Spearheading the project was the then President, past Presidents and the Building Committee, made up of architects and developers. Management worked closely with the committee, which was on site weekly for six years and served as a valuable asset to the process. Redmond notes the strong relationship between his team and the committee throughout the $30 million in capital projects at the club since 2005, “It’s the partnership of management and leadership working together. Everything is a joint venture.”
The committee was heavily involved, and their expertise, vision and ambition were vital to the project’s success and gave the club confidence to take on the task. To support a rooftop of the magnitude the club had planned for, steel beams had to run from the roof to the foundation of the more than century-old building. “Most would have walked away from the project,” says Redmond. The GM worked closely with the Building Committee chair to get critical insight at key points of construction when guidance and assurance was needed.
In his role, Redmond oversaw the entire project to keep it on schedule and to provide a direct line of contact, and his work with CFO Tony Testo ensured any changes to the budget were to address change orders that focused on necessities not committee driven add-ons.. Testo’s financial acumen kept the project transparent in real time throughout.
As part of the project, 50% of the roof was demolished, yet impressively, the club remained open. “The mantra has always been, ‘We never shut down the club for renovations,’” says Redmond. To accomplish this, the club set up regular communication with members and spent a year working with the construction team to develop a plan for how they were going to move through the building and gradually shut down spaces.
During construction, COVID-19 struck, creating a silver lining for the club. Even though the club had to close for 12 weeks, the project continued without additional disruption to the membership. Once the club opened in June 2020, the club kept the first floor operational while construction finished.
Debt Free Culture
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the project is that the club never went into debt to pay for it or any of the other $19 million in capital investments it has undertaken since 2005. Redmond and Testo ensured the project would be fully financed without assessing members by developing a six-year plan. “Assessments can never happen on our watch, short of an act of God,” says Redmond.
The club is built to last via its governance and management model that relies on the strong relationship between the board and the club’s 23 committees and management. This philosophy encourages forward thinking and helps keep leadership’s attention on preserving the club through the future. “My goal as a leader is the club stays fresh and strong for the next 100 years or we’re not being great stewards,” says Redmond.
This philosophy is also the reason why the club has invested about 40% of its capital dollars since 2005in projects members don’t typically notice, like water and electrical service. The Met Club owns property in adjacent buildings to accommodate additional hotel and fitness space, but Redmond notes included in the club’s model is its ability to retract to conserve expenses, when necessary, which proved valuable during the pandemic.
Looking Ahead
“For a club to thrive it has to continually recreate itself and evolve,” says Redmond. Evolving while retaining strong club culture requires discipline, self-awareness and strong, visionary leadership, and the GM credits the board’s ability to think outside of the box and stay on task when developing the Terrace Bar as key reasons for the project’s success.
In part fueled by the stimulus provided by the rooftop, the club is already analyzing what post-pandemic city life may look like five to 10 years from now, and how it may impact the club. Redmond’s team along with the club’s board is studying trends and metrics to inform the next project, and whether it is expanded office space similar to WeWork to accommodate a potential new era of hybrid work or another project, the Metropolitan Club board and management is poised to seamlessly mesh it within the club’s tradition, fully financed.
Phillip Mike is managing editor of Club Director magazine. He can be reached at 202-XXX-XXXX or [email protected].