STYLUS IS BUILDING A LISTENING ROOM WHERE PATTI SMITH USED TO RECORD

The building at 48 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side previously housed Loho Studios, where Patti Smith recorded, where the Ramones rehearsed, where the Blue Man Group practiced before they went anywhere. It is the kind of address that holds history by accident and intention simultaneously. Stylus is opening there in September 2026. It is a private members-only listening club designed by O'Neill Rose Architects, capped at 750 members, with Michelin-starred chef Anita Lo running the food program and Devon Turnbull of OJAS designing the sound system. That combination does not happen by coincidence. Someone wrote a brief that said the building should understand what listening means across every sense. ## Devon Turnbull's OJAS System Is the Wrong Room's Right Answer Devon Turnbull builds analog sound systems that cost more per component than most home recording setups cost total. His OJAS studio in Brooklyn has become a reference point in the audiophile and record community for what high-fidelity playback can feel like when the room is considered as carefully as the equipment. We covered Turnbull's OJAS listening room installation at Karimoku in Tokyo in February 2026, where the same philosophy applied to a Japanese wood furniture brand's New York presence. At Stylus, the Ephemeral room is a double-height central listening space with an Amadeus Acoustics integration system that can alter the room's reverberation in real time to shift acoustic environments, from an intimate jazz club to a cathedral. That is not a typical venue build. Most live music rooms optimize for one acoustic signature. Ephemeral is designed to be multiple rooms inside one physical space, which requires serious money and serious engineering to achieve without compromising either. The Subliminal room in the cellar adds a different layer: 40Hz sound-and-light therapy sessions designed for focus and sleep. That is not concert programming. That is wellness architecture applied to sound, and it represents the wider argument Stylus is making about what listening is for. ## Anita Lo's Michelin Record Serves a Specific Membership Vision Anita Lo closed Annisa in 2017 after eighteen years, making it one of the longer-running woman-owned fine dining restaurants in New York history. She has held a Michelin star. Her culinary direction at Stylus is built around seasonal locally sourced ingredients with Japanese influences, designed to complement rather than compete with the listening experience. The pairing of Lo and Turnbull under the same roof is the clearest signal of Stylus's market position. This is not a venue that happens to have food. This is a venue where the food program and the sound program were designed in parallel to create a complete sensory environment. That model is closer to Noma's original brief than to a standard members club like Soho House, which uses food as an amenity rather than a thesis. Membership is capped at 750. By comparison, Soho House's New York location has thousands of members. Core Club, considered the most exclusive members club in the city, has around 750. Stylus is placing itself in that tier by number, with a programming vision that Core Club does not attempt. ## 10,000 Square Feet on Four Floors Is a Significant Real Estate Position The building is 10,000 square feet across four floors. The fourth floor, Suite 48, connects to a rooftop terrace with a view of the Lower East Side. The club also includes a recording and podcast studio, private dining areas, lounges, and a residential-style suite with a test kitchen. That program density requires serious capital before a single membership is sold. The Lower East Side as a location carries its own argument. The neighborhood has gentrified repeatedly and unevenly. A 750-member private club at $48 Clinton is entering a block with a specific street history, and that tension is either acknowledged in the programming or it is not. The nonprofit component of Stylus's hybrid model, which supports commissioning and programming in these spaces, is the organizational acknowledgment that the club understands what it is moving into. OJAS built a room in Tokyo. OJAS is building a room in New York. The difference is that at Stylus, the room is the product, and 750 people will pay for permanent access to it. September 2026 on the Lower East Side. The waiting list is already open.