The striking Renaissance Revival palazzo at Fifth Avenue and West 54th Street belongs to one of the nation’s most prestigious private clubs—the University Club of New York.
The club was founded in 1865 by a group of recent college graduates who wanted to preserve the friendships and intellectual camaraderie they had enjoyed at university. The young organization led a nomadic existence, spending 15 years in a luxurious Jerome Mansion on the north side of Madison Square Park.
By the end of the 19th century, however, New York’s social center had shifted uptown. The club seized the opportunity to build a grand new clubhouse worthy of its growing reputation at the perfect spot on Fifth Avenue and 54th Street in the heart of prestigious Vanderbilt row. It commissioned the celebrated architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, whose Renaissance-inspired design opened in 1900 and quickly became one of Fifth Avenue’s architectural masterpieces.
By then, the club had outgrown its original humble purpose of keeping old classmates in touch. Its mission expanded to promoting literature, art, intellectual life, and, naturally, socializing with people who had similarly impressive diplomas.
Membership
Unlike clubs tied to a single university, the University Club welcomes graduates from any accredited college or university. However, your degree is not sufficient to become a member. You’ll need two current members willing to sponsor you, along with another three to five members prepared to write glowing letters of recommendation. Besides academic achievements, it helps to have impeccable credentials, personal character, and know the right people.
Inside the Club
If you were to pass the admission process, you’d be able to enter one of New York’s most magnificent clubhouses.
The ground floor features a sumptuous red-and-gold lounge where members sink into deep leather chairs to read newspapers, meet friends, or simply enjoy the blissful absence of tourists.
Above it is the club’s spectacular three-story library, long considered one of the finest private club libraries in the world.
The upper floor houses one of New York’s grandest dining rooms, while elsewhere in the building you’ll find elegant guest rooms, squash courts, fitness facilities, social spaces, and enough polished wood and marble to remind you that this was built during the Gilded Age, when subtlety was considered overrated.
The 97 beautifully appointed guest rooms allow members from around the world to treat the club as a very luxurious home away from home.
The Dress Code
Getting accepted isn’t the end of the challenge. Next comes getting dressed.
Gentlemen are expected to wear a jacket, dress trousers, and a collared shirt. Ties are encouraged during the day and required for dinner in the Main Dining Room.
Ladies are expected to dress with equal formality in tailored suits, elegant dresses, skirts, or tailored pants paired with a jacket, elegant sweater, or similarly refined top.
If you didn’t make the cut, there’s a silver lining: you’re free to wear all the things the club forbids—jeans, T-shirts, shorts, cargo pants, leggings, sneakers, athletic wear, and sandals.
For much of its history, there was one more rule: members had to be men. That finally changed in 1987, when the club voted to admit women after more than a century as an all-male institution.
Today, the University Club remains one of the city’s most exclusive addresses. Membership dues aren’t publicly disclosed, preserving one final mystery behind those doors.
Then again, if they told everyone the price, it might seem almost… ordinary.
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