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Soho House's second UK country property tests whether its only profitable format can scale while the company seeks buyers for a struggling public portfolio.
45 minutes
outside central London
$2.8 billion
and has since underperformed
68 percent
from the July 2021 IPO price
43
global houses
Soho House announced a new location opening 45 minutes outside central London, marking the first time the 30-year-old members' club operator has positioned a UK property this far from urban density. The site will include boating and racquet facilities alongside the group's standard bedrooms, coworking spaces, and dining rooms. Soho House has not disclosed the specific location, opening date, or construction budget.
The move extends a pattern visible in the company's US portfolio—Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire opened in 2015 and remains the group's highest-grossing property by revenue per available room, according to filings reviewed before the company's 2021 SPAC merger. That deal valued Soho House at $2.8 billion and has since underperformed; shares closed January 2025 down 68 percent from the July 2021 IPO price. The new London-adjacent property suggests management is replicating the one format that has consistently outperformed urban locations, where occupancy and food-beverage per-cap remain under pre-pandemic levels across most of the 43 global houses.
The timing matters for three constituencies. First, single-family offices and private-equity real estate arms have been circling the Soho House portfolio since late 2024, when Bloomberg reported the Harilela family and others were conducting diligence on individual properties or the entire platform. A second successful country house would make the asset class more legible to buyers who understand resort economics but remain wary of urban social-club volatility. Second, luxury hospitality developers now have a 10-year track record from Soho Farmhouse showing that affluent membership bases will pay £2,000-plus annual dues and travel 90-plus minutes for weekend inventory if the product mix includes water access, field sports, and evening programming distinct from city houses. Third, heritage hospitality brands—Rosewood, Belmond, Aman—are watching whether the members' club wrapper can command higher forward RevPAR than traditional country-house hotels in the same catchment zones.
Operators and allocators should watch three follow-on events. Soho House's Q1 2025 earnings, expected late March, will clarify whether the company is self-funding this project or raising incremental debt; net leverage sat at 4.2x EBITDA as of September 2024. The UK planning process will reveal the exact location within 60 days of formal application, offering comparable land values and competitive set visibility. Any announcement of a second country house in Europe or North America within 12 months would confirm this is a deliberate portfolio pivot, not a one-off.
The company that cannot yet make its urban houses profitable at scale is betting it can make rural houses profitable in volume.
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