|Places| Haute
|Places| Haute Healthcare Top-of-the-line wellness assessments, health-first members’ clubs, out-of-this-world hotel spas: welcome to the new era of healthy living. By Jemima Sissons I nside a neoclassical topiary-flanked 18th-century Mayfair town house on the corner of Brook Street, central London, opulent taupe linens form a soft palette and arthouse books are scattered over mid-century tables alongside sleek surfaces of Corian marble. As far from a dingy doctor’s waiting room as possible, this is Hooke (hooke.london), one of the companies leading the charge in the new era of haute healthcare, where a members’-club-style approach, interior-designerfinished lounges and artful calorie-controlled food is served to clients willing to pay up to £60,000 for high-end health MOTs. Founded by Lev Mikheev and his daughter Kate, Hooke offers a multidisciplinary focus on lifestyle, medicine, fitness and nutrition via consultations with cardiologists, musculoskeletal specialists, PTs, dermatologists and more. Not far from here, on Dover Street, is Lanserhof at the Arts Club (lhtac.com), where wooden cubes emblazoned with the retreat’s mantra to “chew 30 times every bite” sit alongside pots of Fasting Tea, a niche melange of birch leaves, dandelion, pansies and spices. The first urban offshoot from the Austrian medical spa ILLUSTRATION TATIANA AYAZO / GALLERY STOCK 20 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
group dedicated to longevity through fasting, it has just launched its Performance programme. Here, flanked by calming photographic murals of mossy glades, clients are talked through plans which include spine analyses in the downstairs lab, MRI scans, trauma therapy and nutrition consultations. Companies are now offering supernova health screenings across town. In Harley Street, there is an orderly queue (generally of work-stressed men over 40) for the elite services of Echelon (echelon.health), one of the most comprehensive healthcare one-stop-shops. For £14k, burnt-out executives are taken from one gilded doctor’s study to another (on our visit, one such room boasted Louis Quinze mirrors alongside cases of 1er Cru Montrachet) to undergo a complete body analysis. From colonoscopies to mammograms, MSK to thyroid scans, the process may not be pleasant, but it saves lives. Both Hooke and Echelon report catching cancers, chronic heart issues and other life-threatening diseases early. Echelon’s day of prodding and probing is softened with a night in a suite at the Mandarin Oriental. It’s not just London. Globally, Medix One (medix. one) offers its services to nine million clients worldwide. It was started after founder Sigal Atzmon experienced a disheartening wait in a doctor’s room for results and sought to establish a company “which would make sure that no one ever needed to feel alone when they received a medical diagnosis”. Its network now spans more than 4,500 world-leading specialists and 2,000+ hospitals across 90+ countries. If urban resorts have become about wellness, then members’ clubs are becoming more detox than retox, with the US leading the charge. In Los Angeles’ Heimat (heimat.com), a club where exercise and socialising go hand-in-hand, goblets of fine wines are shared after kinesis classes and hydrofacials. Nearby in West Hollywood, Remedy Place (remedyplace.com) claims to be the world’s first social wellness club. Its prestige membership gives clients an in-depth analysis of “every system, every organ, every deficiency, every toxicity level, sensitively, gut health … you name it. From there, we are able to put you on an individual plan that is specific to you,” says founder Dr Jonathan Leary. Meanwhile, in New York, Ghost (ghost.xyz) is a Williamsburg-based, application-only members’-club gym whose fusion yoga and Pilates classes are creating a cult following. Servicing the needs of Monaco’s lissome-limbed, private health club 39 Monte Carlo (39montecarlo. com) sees itself as a wellness ecosystem which starts with a blood test and, after numerous additional scans, offers a signature six-month longevity cure. In a city of high stakes, nobody, it seems, is willing to gamble with their health any more. And Down Under in Melbourne, Saint Haven (sainthaven.com.au) is the first club with a similar concept: recently opened in hip Collingwood, memberships are already sold out. While wellness has long been a focus at five-star resorts a new wave of urban hotels are shaped around health and fitness entirely. Equinox (equinox.com) in the US was first past the post, turning its exclusive gym concept into a full-scale hotel in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards development in 2019. The Kerzner Group will open Siro hotels in Dubai and Montenegro in the next two years, both focusing on offering a fitness and recovery hospitality space. Expect shakeology hubs (that’s a post-workout smoothie to you and me), bespoke nutrition plans and 1,000sq m-plus gyms. Back in London, the highly anticipated Raffles London at The OWO in Whitehall (theowo.london) will be collaborating with high-end health companies (possibly Echelon, although lips are sealed) to partner with the best medical experts to allow guest access to leading diagnostics and specialists. “We are seeing a consumer-led interest in results-focused treatments that embrace medi techniques and greater acceptance to provide these services within luxury hotels,” says Accor’s head of wellness Emlyn Brown, who is overseeing the OWO healthcare programmes. Yet as the boundaries between luxury hotels and hospitals, wellness and social clubs blur, doctors and clients alike are keeping their fingers firmly on the pulse: “We all know how wonderful it is spending time in luxury spas, and luxurious screening centres but true health extends far beyond this and the standard annual check-up,” says Medix’s Sigal Atzmon. “It’s about really understanding our genetics, epigenetics, our personal risks and what’s going on in our bodies and minds so we can make sustainable changes.” Members’ clubs are becoming more detox than retox, with the US leading the charge CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 21
