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A new kind of members club is coming to the Lower East Side, but you won’t find any bottle service here. Instead, this one’s about listening.
Called Stylus, the new space is calling itself an “acoustic salon” built around high-fidelity sound and an equally serious culinary component. Slated to open later this year at 48 Clinton Street, the club will cap membership at just 750 people, focusing on artists, scientists, musicians and other creative types.
If that sounds lofty, the setting helps sell it. The building itself has a serious downtown pedigree: it was once a market in the 1940s, then became the famed Loho Studios in the ’80s (where Patti Smith and Joey Ramone recorded) and later served as a Blue Man Group rehearsal space. Now it’s being transformed (and expanded) into a roughly 10,000-square-foot, four-story playground for people who care deeply about sound.
The center of the space is a double-height listening room called “Ephemeral,” which is designed to make everything—from vinyl sessions to live performances—sound exactly as intended, if not better. Devon Turnbull of Ojas created a custom analog system for the space, alongside an immersive audio setup from Amadeus Acoustics. The combination of both can literally shift the room’s acoustics in an instant, so a performance can feel like a cathedral one minute and a buzzy jazz club the next.
Downstairs, a subterranean space called “Subliminal” doubles as a listening lounge and wellness zone, offering 40Hz sound-and-light sessions aimed at boosting focus, sleep and cognitive function, all backed by emerging research from places like MIT and Stanford.
Upstairs, Stylus will have a mix of lounges, a recording and podcast studio, private dining areas and a residential-style suite that can turn into its own listening environment. The shift in the spaces is intentional: the architecture moves from high-energy, communal spaces to quieter, more intimate ones as you head upstairs.
And then there’s the food. Anita Lo, who held a Michelin star for nine consecutive years at her now-closed West Village restaurant, Annisa, will lead the culinary program. Menus will blend seasonal, locally sourced ingredients with Japanese influences as a nod to classic listening bars. There will be small plates, tea and low-ABV drinks, plus guest chef residencies, workshops and private dinners to keep things feeling fresh.
Overall, programming is promised to feel more like a cultural festival than a club. A mix of listening sessions, live performances, film screenings, panels and even sound-based wellness offerings will rotate throughout the day and night.
In a downtown landscape that’s become saturated with members’ clubs, Stylus feels less like another addition—and more like a deliberate departure from the formula.