Inside Long Lane, The UK’s First Sober Members’ Club

Long Lane will open in West Sussex as the UK’s first sober private members’ club and hotel, built across 55 acres of the South Downs National Park at Dunford House. The project is founded by Louie Blake and Harrison Hide, and positions health as the organising principle of social life rather than an amenity attached to it.

The founders arrived at the concept through their own working lives. Hide began his career in finance in New York, where client entertaining structured his weeks around late nights and heavy drinking. He left the industry, travelled, and returned with different priorities. Blake spent fifteen years in hospitality and had observed the same cycle from the operator’s side. Their shared conclusion was that most social spaces quietly work against the health of the people using them. Long Lane has been developed publicly since 2023, with naming, design and programming decisions shared openly with an audience that helped shape them.

A membership built on diagnostics

Membership begins with biometric and DNA methylation testing. Results inform personalised protocols across nutrition, training and treatment, tracked through an integrated app. It is an approach long established in elite sport, where recovery is measured with the same rigour as performance, now applied to a hospitality setting.

The Coach House operates as the clinical and performance hub. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cryotherapy, IV treatments and contrast therapy suites sit alongside a gym equipped for strength, endurance and Pilates. The Farm houses manual therapies, woodland treatment pods, a natural swimming pool and cold plunges, with running and walking trails extending across the estate.

Design and recovery

Dunford House, rebuilt in the mid nineteenth century for Richard Cobden, has been reworked with wellness design studio Szczepaniak Teh. The brief prioritised non-toxic materials and layouts organised around shared libraries, lounges and co-working spaces. The main house will hold twenty bedrooms, with a further ten cabins set within the woodland.

Rooms are specified for sleep quality. Eight Sleep mattresses, air filtration systems, organic materials and red light panels designed to support circadian rhythm come as standard, with supplements and treatments bookable through in-room wellness menus. It is a level of detail more commonly found in an athlete’s home setup than a countryside hotel.

Food, drink and community

The restaurant works from members’ biometric data to build menus around seasonal, organic and regeneratively farmed produce, supplied in part by an on-site farm with hens and bees. The drinks programme is alcohol-free throughout, running adaptogenic blends and functional elixirs from an Elixir Bar and herbal distillery developed with Farmacy London.

Programming extends to visiting practitioners, cultural events and designated phone-free areas. The intention is a club where socialising and recovery occupy the same space rather than competing for it.

A different model

British members’ clubs have historically measured status through wine lists and late licences. Long Lane proposes an alternative, where diagnostics, structured recovery and an alcohol-free environment carry the weight instead. For a generation drinking less and training more seriously, it addresses a gap the traditional club model has left open.

Long Lane is under construction in West Sussex, with membership applications open ahead of opening. Contact the SW team for the latest on day to day wellness.