The members' club renaissance goes West

As the members’ club enters a new Golden Age, even the American West has become a destination for rarified glamour. In Big Sky, Montana, the historic 148-acre Lone Mountain Ranch recently launched Auric Room 1915, a private ‘membership experience’ on the North Fork Gallatin River.

A diamond in the rugged Montana mountains, the intimate venue is accessible via a hidden closet door leading to a private reception. The hallway, painted in Farrow and Ball’s Studio Green, sets the tone with tin ceilings and a functioning 1940s phone booth. Guests are asked to leave their cell phones in vintage mailboxes repurposed as private lockers. Further inside, the dimly lit spaces are awash in heritage colour, panelled in glossy tongue-and-groove and furnished with oxblood-leather banquettes separated by velvet curtains.

Leading the design, Eric Cheong of North 45 Projects set out spaces for private meetings, lavish dinners, bourbon-tasting and cigar-smoking, the latter on a cosy terrace with sweeping views of the Ranch. Cheong was inspired by a bygone era of old rancher’s saloons and homesteads, but elevated the rustic look with a dramatic bar of black marble and ebonised oak, stocked with vintage crystal. Incidental areas have become centrepieces in his design. The mahogany elevator has Banker Wire brass mesh detailing and a bespoke leather-wrapped handrail. The stairwell is swathed in custom silk-screened floral wallpaper inspired by Montana emblems, and fitted with an antique-brass railing.

These bring guests upstairs to a suite of red rooms with walls painted in Farrow and Ball Brinjal and inset with bronze mirrors from Pulp Studio. Cheong has decorated throughout with antiques and vintage art but commissioned key pieces, like leather-topped bar tables by Moore and Giles, brass Circa Lighting fixtures, hand-painted lampshades and a show-stopping antler chandelier by Fish Fisher.

Prospective members are asked to apply on the website.