It’s 5.30 pm on a Tuesday, and I’ve (only just) made it in time to Flatiron to cram into Othership’s packed multi-level sauna for the Inner Power class. Before the first segment begins, a man with a stone necklace approaches me, offering refreshments, and the girl seated next to me asks if we are about to participate in hot yoga (we’re not). “I don’t really know what this is, but my friend that takes ayahuasca in LA recommended it,” she whispers in my ear. It’s clear I’ve made a friend: not for life, but at least for the remainder of the session – and that’s exactly the point of the new immersive social sauna and ice bath experience. Following the instructor, we begin waving our arms, tapping our bodies, and chanting affirmations. “I am powerful,” we scream in unison, sweat flying from the fingertips of the 20 or so people around me.
Othership’s five co-founders built a word-of-mouth-based community around a homemade ice bath and sauna in 2019. After opening two spaces in Toronto, they opened their first New York space this summer, bringing their passion for red-tinted lighting, wooden decor, and signature “guided experiences that go beyond physical wellbeing” to the US. As a “social wellness space”, their program goes beyond physical exercise and wellness (though there’s some of that) to offer what Robbie Bent, one of Othership’s co-founders, calls a “fourth space” for “soft-spoken interactions” and evening “sober-curious” social events. “New Yorkers are increasingly looking for ways to de-stress and connect without alcohol and cell phones, as people think more critically about their physical, emotional, and social wellbeing,” Bent says. “Thousands of people have already been through the Flatiron space.”
During my time at Othership, I couldn’t deny that the space had attracted a crowd combination that I knew existed within the city but had never before witnessed with my own eyes (think finance bro meets Lululemon meets granola and raw butter). While we were communally showering before the ice bath portion, I had to reassure myself that I had not somehow teleported to Burning Man (or, at least, LA) and that the number of bare feet I was seeing wasn’t a cause for concern. And, when holding my body under 0-4°C water, one question came to mind: do wealthy people bond by putting themselves through the extremities? It seemed so. Around me, conversations were flowing: about being cold, how everyone heard of Othership, and what other wellness social club people would try next. “The Well is meant to be next level,” one woman told me. In that moment, I knew social wellness clubs were not just just a trend, but a rising phenomenon.
Over the past few years, multiple social wellness clubs have sprouted up across New York. The Well opened its 13,000-square-foot space in 2019, cultivating a community of “like-minded individuals focused on wellness” and offering a full-service spa, medical practice, organic restaurant, foot rub lounge, meditation studio, and more. They even have a luxury residential condo in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, coming in 2025. “By offering many different modalities that support whole-person care under one roof, we’re helping our community put wellness at the centre of their lives, making wellness part of their every day,” says Rebecca Parekh, CEO and co-founder of The Well. “We look forward to becoming an integral part of Bay Harbor Islands and contributing to the health and happiness of its residents by introducing a space where people can live, work and play in complete wellness.”
Along with Othership, New York’s most recent openings include Remedy Place, a “social self-care” club that started in West Hollywood, and Continuum, an elite, members-only club that opened in May this year, offering a wellness experience “designed to steer high-performing individuals toward their true physical ideal”. While Continuum provides hyper-personalised services (like AI biometric screenings, body composition scans and blood panels), most of the social wellness clubs across the US offer some combination of buzzy wellness treatments (like lymphatic drainage massages, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, red light therapy, and cold plunges) and the potential for new friends.
The modern wellness industry is built on rampant individualism, so the idea that wellness spaces can also be a place to gather in person seems like a step in the right direction. However, with membership costs ranging from $333 to $10,000 a month, wellness social clubs are still built on the basis of being exclusive – offering you the chance to mingle only with people within a certain income bracket. Then there’s the fact that the purpose of the spaces is still highly focused on personal optimisation. For Continuum members, this means using an app that monitors biometric data in real time, providing you with “proactive feedback” and suggestions for specific services or therapies to enhance your well-being. So, can ice baths and red light therapy sessions really provide the basis for long-lasting friendships?
Spending time with friends and even chatting with strangers does improve your overall well-being, so incorporating socialising into your routine has been a missing (and extremely important) element of wellness dialogue. But the catch is this: buying into today’s wellness culture means treating yourself as a constant self-improvement project and the people around you as competitors. With that in mind, joining an “exclusive” wellness social club may connect you with others deep within the wellness bubble but perhaps not your neighbours. That, I’m sure, would be part of the appeal to many, but ultimately the downfall of trying to combat today’s “epidemic of loneliness”. After all, the Black Panthers used the term “self-care” during the civil rights movement, promoting a focus on collective well-being through community efforts like free food programs for children and families and free health clinics (emphasis on the offerings being free).
Despite the fact that wellness culture itself currently does not provide an accessible starting point for community-building, there’s no denying that New York’s new social clubs have emerged from a genuine need for new places to gather in person. Since 2000, alcohol use among younger Americans has declined significantly, so bars and restaurants may no longer be cutting it. “As soon as we opened our first club in West Hollywood, we received an overwhelming number of requests from people on social media and through emails, asking us to bring Remedy Place to New York,” says Dr Jonathan Leary, founder and CEO at Remedy Place. “I was always told that Remedy Place was the most LA thing they have ever heard, so this was a cool sign that I knew the world would eventually get it.”
As New York slowly morphs into LA (people are already looking for the “Erewhon” of Manhattan), I spent the day after my Othership sauna experience in one of Remedy Place’s oxygen chambers. After being locked into what felt like a pressurised space simulator, I looked out through the glass at the people walking past me. One person was heading into a cryotherapy chamber, and another half-smiled at me on the way to the sauna. Was this really “connecting”? A growing number of New Yorkers think so. After the success of Remedy’s Flatiron opening, Dr. Leary says they are opening their third club in SoHo in September. “Alternative medicine, self-care, and social wellness are finally getting the attention they deserve,” he says. “This is just the beginning.”
