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The city’s most exclusive private clubs remain a mystery to everyday Melburnians. In this series, The Age uncovers the secrets and politics unfolding behind closed doors and the moment of reckoning these institutions are facing.
No phones, women or business talk: What it’s like inside Melbourne’s most prestigious club
Behind an imposing facade is the granddaddy of Melbourne’s private clubs – an exclusive and privileged all-male, old-world institution.
- Michael Bachelard
The savage reckoning unfolding at Melbourne’s bohemian bolthole
Melbourne’s Savage Club has been a haven for bohemians, politicians and corporate titans for 130 years, but its conservative members face a battle for relevance.
- Cameron Houston
The unlikely source of income for Melbourne’s most exclusive women’s club
Melbourne’s wealthiest women control who is allowed through the clubhouse’s gilded doors, where a seat at the table is seen as a chance to rub shoulders with women of influence.
- Alex Crowe
A bloodless coup and secret lunch club: The men-only clubhouse where conservatives ate, drank and plotted
Inside this six-storey club, behind an unmarked and discreet entrance, political power players would meet with titans of industry, media barons, judges and police commissioners.
- Liam Mannix
This has been an exclusive men-only club for 146 years. But tensions are emerging
As the Australian Club tussles between tradition and modernity, members were recently given a dressing-down for a simple act.
- Stephen Brook
How a women’s club got the last laugh on exclusive men-only bolthole
Across a laneway, the women-only clubhouse was renovated to look down on an area that’s determined to keep them out.
- Cara Waters
Miss Pearls had just shuttered Madame Brussels. Then a world behind closed doors beckoned
The smoke-cured laugh of Paula Scholes, aka Miss Pearls, can be heard day and night within the wood-panelled walls of the Kelvin Club.
- Chip Le Grand
- Opinion
I was a fly on the wall at one of Melbourne’s secretive men’s clubs
I was a waiter at the Athenaeum Club from 1988 to 1995. Amid the powerful men who lunched, there were customs that now seem quirky and outdated.
- Simon Rowe
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