One could be forgiven for wandering past the gold double doors at the Paris end of Collins Street, next to a Prada store, without registering the existence of one of Melbourne’s most exclusive clubs.
The Alexandra Club isn’t in the business of advertising its existence.
Its all-female membership – made up of Melbourne’s wealthiest women – controls who can enter the doors to the five-level clubhouse.
Its next-door neighbour, the notoriously exclusionary Athenaeum Club, once proposed installing a shared door between the clubs. The response was a polite but resounding “no, thank you”.
The Alexandra Club, like the Lyceum Club a hundred metres or so up the street, remains one of the few exclusive all-female clubs in Melbourne.
General manager Sean Moroney (a man, confusingly) explained that club rules prevent members from speaking to journalists. Photography is strictly forbidden.
But not everyone follows the rules; members and past members who spoke to The Age did so on condition of anonymity to avoid getting the boot.
The Alexandra Club exists as a sanctuary for the rich: former premiers’ wives, journalists and daughters of some of Melbourne’s most well-heeled families.
Lauraine Luckock, currently at loggerheads with members of the Barwon Heads community over a proposed 10-bedroom mansion on the banks of the Barwon River, was recently appointed club president.
Long-serving members nominate non-members to join the club, and a seat at the table is seen as a chance to rub shoulders with women of influence.
“It’s changed a little because it used to be very much just older people,” one member said. “We’ve now got a young members group coming in.”
As the 2005 decision to reject the Athenaeum’s proposal demonstrates, change has not always been welcome at the Alexandra Club.
A multimillion-dollar redevelopment proposal to attract younger members almost tore the club apart in 2018.
The upheaval began when a group of members objecting to the changes turned opinions against the proposal by warning members they’d be liable for costs if the redevelopment flopped.
A mass resignation of committee members supportive of the plan ensued, and long-time club secretary Helen Fanning was unceremoniously shown the door.
In turn, Fanning filed unfair dismissal proceedings, which the club settled out of court. Fanning, who was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement, declined The Age’s invitation to comment for this article.
“I didn’t like all that,” one former member said. “That’s why I left. You can’t close the doors to young people.”
Famed interior designer Nina Campbell was staying at the Alexandra Club while in Melbourne for an industry event not long after the dust settled.
While Campbell was lunching, a club committee member asked how she’d liven things up.
“It really was a mess, actually,” Campbell told The Age.
She said she’d start by splitting the dining room into two areas, and “the columns make me think of an underground carpark”.
With the major redevelopment dead, Campbell was commissioned to redo the club’s interiors.
The first-floor restaurant was divided into areas for sitting and eating, and wallpaper covered the “postwar tank green” walls. The columns had to stay, but mirrors were attached “to create symmetry”.
The Green Room “was a canteen, really”, and got a fresh coat of paint and became somewhere to get a drink.
“I asked the lady behind the canteen counter what she sold, and she said: ‘Oh, we just make soups, salads, and sandwiches,’ and I thought: ‘God, that sounds so depressing,’” she said.
“I wanted to make it into more of a bar: so we did.”
By the time she’d finished, Campbell had almost refreshed the entire club, including the lobby, dining room, sitting room, powder room, and library.
“What I was trying to do is retain that classical style but give it a modern twist,” she said.
According to one member, Campbell’s work paid off: “We had a huge transfer of people from the Lyceum.”
In addition to the annual membership fees, the club’s main source of revenue comes from Prada’s rent.
The club hosts social events and a busy calendar of speakers invited to entertain the ladies who lunch.
“They’ve got about six different language classes and history classes at the moment,” one member said.
“I’m just deciding whether I can manage to do ancient Greece.”
The age-old notion of Melbourne’s single-gender clubs has ruffled feathers – both in decades past and during recent times.
In October, Transport Minister Catherine King spoke in federal parliament about one of the “very, very few places … where women are not involved and are not allowed” – the Athenaeum Club.
Commenting on a $5000-a-head fundraiser that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton held at the club, King labelled it a “bastion to a long, long gone age”.
In 2009, former state Liberal Party director John Ridley left the Athenaeum after a failed attempt to let women join.
Ridley started the Melbourne Forum about 15 years ago, a mixed-gender club with about 200 members.
“The men’s clubs stay single-sex because far too many of their members seem to be frightened or seem to need space away from women,” he said.
“I remember one of the worst of them, during one of the debates, said: “Our wives might join!”
The Alexandra Club
- Address: 81 Collins Street, Melbourne
- Founded: 1903
- What’s inside: Nine ensuite bedrooms ranging from single to large double, dining room, sitting room, powder room, library
- Rules: Women-only, no photographs inside, members are forbidden from speaking to journalists
“When we pointed out, back in 2009, that the chief justice was a woman, the governor-general was a woman, the chief of police in Victoria was a woman, and none of them could belong to the Athenaeum Club, he said: ‘Good riddance.’”
Ridley said he understood why women might value having a space of their own, but it didn’t make sense for men.
“To be relevant to today’s society, you have to be open and inclusive,” he said. “You can’t engage with slightly less than half the community and say that you’re dealing with the public.”
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