Inside Stylus, The Lower East Side Members’ Club for Ephemeral Art Debuting in 2026

Amidst New York City’s continuously crowded members’ club market, a new type of offering will open on the Lower East Side in 2026: Stylus, which has taken substantial design, cultural, and culinary measures to differentiate itself. With architecture and interiors helmed by O’Neill Rose Architects, each space has a unique personality—often driven by the work of collaborating artists, which the firm melds with repeated materials and architectural details for a continuous narrative. The heart of the club will function as an acoustically engineered performance space and listening room, featuring a structurally integrated sound system by Devon Turnbull, founder of OJAS audio equipment, and a selector station designed in collaboration with Studio Sabine Marcelis and ORA. This collaboration continued with interior designers Selene Privitera, Paolo Matera, and ORA to add elegance and texture to Stylus.

The artistry starts with the facade, which is “composed of curved perforated aluminum panels cantilevered off the face of the building, floating in front of highly reflective anodized aluminum flat panels. This creates diffused pixelated reflections of Clinton Street’s buildings and activity, at once connecting Stylus to the neighborhood and creating a unique identity,” Devin O’Neill, founder of O’Neill Rose Architects and the architect of Stylus, shares with Surface on a tour of the site as it nears completion.

Guests will pass beyond the facade into reception, leaving Clinton Street behind, before entering into an acoustically enclosed room. The sound experience will transition the outside cacophony into a place of careful listening. O’Neill Rose Architects worked with a team of acoustic advisers—from Amadeus Acoustics, Bourdeau Acoustical Design, and Criterion Acoustics—for two-and-a-half years, reviewing every drawing and refining each new idea, with the ultimate goal of creating an acoustic chameleon of a space. “So you can change it to be a cathedral in France or an intimate jazz club,” O’Neill explains, referring to the capabilities of Amadeus Acoustics, a spatial audio and live performance enhancement system implemented in the central listening room and first of its kind in the U.S.

“Stylus is a unicorn members club, an acoustic salon and a sanctuary for the ephemeral arts—performance, science, music, film and food—all sustained by a hybrid, for profit/nonprofit model,” shares Luisa Gui, Managing Director of Stylus. “The space is designed to be intimate and adaptive, to organically morph and flex for multidisciplinary programming, every day, morning to evening, emphasizing the experiences that you can hear, feel and taste.” There’s even a room designed for 40 Hertz presentations, where both light and sound can be set to the same frequency, complete with a conversation pit-like Paulin Paulin Paulin sofa covering the entire floor. It can be enjoyed by members during the day—or booked privately.

Culinary director Anita Lo—who maintained a Michelin star for nine consecutive years at her West Village restaurant, Annisa—will oversee breakfast, lunch, and dinner for members, drawing from international cuisines and favoring the seasonal and the locally sourced. She’ll also helm a unique initiative mentoring visiting chefs, inviting talent from all over the world to rotate through and participate in culinary workshops, private classes, wine tastings, tea ceremonies, and more (those resident chefs will be able to live in the two bedrooms on site).

Some of the key choices for materials range from brickwork that weaves together interior and exterior spaces to an engineered wood system from Dinesen called Layers. It’s the first use of this system from the Danish company in the U.S. Additional millwork is being handled by the craftsmen of Danish company Ocular. Culinary spaces are designed almost as if they were performance spaces, too, with recording equipment, to capture ephemeral gourmet moments. Everything has a dual purpose.

Beyond the custom DJ setup, Marcelis, a Rotterdam-based designer, provided resin chandeliers, a reception desk, and a bar cart. “These pieces are like beacons that guide you through the space,” O’Neill says. Elsewhere, photographer Andrew Zuckerman’s moonscapes transform into wallcoverings. All of the aesthetic elements are extensions of a single, technologically advanced “brain” that unites all of the sonic components.

In the more residential spaces, wood sets a soothing tone. O’Neill shares: “For much of the treatment on the wood, we are using linseed oil with subtle pigments, like a soft pink for the third-floor test kitchen or a rich green for a bedroom.” Some members will likely dream of living in the space—which they can do, by booking the bedrooms or hosting dinner parties. One private dining space could host up to 40 seated. Perhaps a highlight for other members, an upstairs lounge will be peppered with contemporary and vintage furniture, handpicked by the Milanese interiors team Privitera and Matera, for daytime work.

Stylus will be limited to 750 members total—and applications are now open. The residential intimacy provided by the footprint and the design decisions present a unique proposition. “The founders, medical entrepreneurs and art world veterans, see this as an extension of their own home. The inception of this project was their subterraneal listening room,” Gui says. “They wanted a space to entertain and gather with likeminded, creatively curious, innovation-driven individuals.” Now, for anyone committed to optimized sound and enveloping social spaces, there’s an option.