Soho House in New York

Mumbai, Aug. 25: It is the fashionable haunt of celebrities and media darlings from London’s West End to the Hollywood Hills. Now, having conquered America, Soho House is set to land in Bollywood for its Asian premiere.

The luxury private members’ club is poised to open its next lounge — its first outside Europe and the US — in the heart of Mumbai.

Soho House, majority-owned by billionaire Richard Caring, has acquired a beach house in the upscale suburb of Juhu, home to many of the biggest film studios and actors, including Amitabh Bachchan.

The group is understood to be preparing for a launch early next year, although the details are being kept under wraps. A spokesperson for Soho House in London confirmed that the group planned to open a “members’ club and hotel” in Mumbai in the coming months.

The opening of a Soho House in India is part of a significant international expansion drive for the group, which was originally founded in London in 1995 as a private members’ club for people in the film, media and creative industries.

It now operates five clubs in Britain, including four in London and another in a country house near Frome, Somerset. It also owns a property in Berlin and three more in the US — in New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

With 17,000 members across America and Europe, Caring is understood to be keen to globalise the brand. As well as Mumbai, where plans are well advanced, he is exploring openings in Istanbul, Sao Paulo and Milan.

Mumbai has a rich tradition of private members’ clubs, although many have a reputation for stuffiness. Most date back to the era of the British Raj, when evenings spent sipping gin and tonics beneath whirring ceiling fans were de rigueur for European traders and colonial officials.

A.K. Kapoor, secretary of Mumbai’s Royal Willingdon Club, which was founded in 1918 and was the first of its kind to open its doors to Indians as well as Europeans, said there was enormous pent-up demand for private clubs in Mumbai.

“In a city like Bombay, people like to have membership of a club because public parks and other facilities are very limited,” Kapoor said. “But our membership is absolutely chock-a-block. We don’t even maintain a waiting list.”

The atmosphere at clubs such as the Willingdon, which has 6,000 members out of Mumbai’s over 20-million population, and the Bombay Gymkhana, where little has changed since it was founded in 1875, are in stark contrast to Soho House, where Jude Law and Sadie Frost’s daughter once reportedly swallowed an ecstasy tablet.

The Willingdon is even said to have an unwritten rule that bans actors from membership.

Sources familiar with the Soho House’s plans said a lot of attention was being focused on attracting the right clientele in Mumbai. It is hoping to attract India’s top creative talent in the film, music and media industries, rather than the ageing businessmen, bankers and financiers who populate many of the city’s other members’ clubs.