NeueHouse’s Sudden Closure: A Coworking Club’s Rise, Fall, and Industry Reckoning

Visuals from NeueHouse Madison Square interior

In early September 2025, NeueHouse – an upscale, members-only coworking and social club – shocked its community by abruptly shutting down all of its locations. The announcement came with only 48 hours’ notice for members to retrieve their belongings. The company’s board cited “legacy liabilities” and severe financial challenges that made continued operations untenable. NeueHouse’s swift collapse has sent ripples through the coworking industry, raising questions about the viability of premium boutique workspaces amid shifting work patterns and a strained office real estate market.

An Abrupt End to Three Trendy Clubhouses

NeueHouse closed three clubhouses on the afternoon of Friday, September 5, 2025 – one in New York City and two in Los Angeles. Below is a full list of these locations and what is known about their closure:

• NeueHouse Madison Square (New York City): The original NeueHouse, opened in 2013 on East 25th Street in Manhattan, was the brand’s flagship space. It offered stylish lounges, work areas, studios, and event venues for creative professionals. This Manhattan location shut its doors alongside the others on Sept. 5, 2025, as part of the company’s liquidation. Members in New York, like their LA counterparts, were caught off guard and given only two days to pack up.

• NeueHouse Hollywood (Los Angeles): Housed at 6121 Sunset Blvd. in the historic CBS Columbia Square studios, NeueHouse Hollywood opened in October 2015 as the company’s first West Coast outpost. It quickly became a buzzy hub for Hollywood’s elite – a “home-away-from-home” for screenwriters, producers, and artists, known for celebrity-filled premieres, art exhibits, and rooftop parties. By late 2024, however, the Hollywood site was under severe financial strain – NeueHouse had even stopped paying rent on the lease, prompting lawsuits. The Hollywood clubhouse was permanently closed at 2 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2025, in the company’s shutdown.

• NeueHouse Venice Beach (Los Angeles): Opened in 2022, NeueHouse’s Venice Beach location occupied a two-story 1920s building near L.A.’s creative coastal community. It was part of NeueHouse’s strategy to expand its “fledgling empire of cool” across Los Angeles. The Venice clubhouse attracted tech and design innovators on the Westside, but like the others, it was shuttered on Sept. 5, 2025. Employees at Venice say they saw signs of financial trouble in advance and ultimately received only a day and a half notice of the closure – with no severance pay. Some members had paid annual fees just days before the shutdown and were outraged at the sudden loss of access.

(Note: NeueHouse briefly operated a Downtown Los Angeles location as well. In January 2020 it opened a 25,000 ft² space in the iconic Bradbury Building. However, that site struggled during the pandemic and NeueHouse terminated its Bradbury lease in late 2023 to stem losses. By the time of the 2025 shutdown, only the Hollywood, Venice, and NYC clubhouses remained open.)*

All three remaining locations were effectively victims of the same financial unraveling. On its website and social media, NeueHouse’s board expressed regret and said winding down was “the most responsible path” for all stakeholders. Members and staff, however, described the abrupt end as “cutthroat” and “heartbreaking,” with some employees showing up to help despite being kept “completely in the dark”. The co-founder Joshua Abram had died just one month earlier in August 2025 at age 62, adding a poignant coda to the company’s demise.

From Buzz to Bankruptcy: NeueHouse’s Rise and Fall Timeline

NeueHouse’s journey over the past decade was a dramatic rollercoaster – from its meteoric rise as a trendsetting workspace for creatives, to overspending and ultimate bankruptcy. Founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs Joshua Abram, Alan Murray, and James O’Reilly, the company set out to redefine the coworking experience. Abram and Murray envisioned an “ideal experience” for creative industry leaders, blending the utility of a shared office with the exclusivity of a private club.

Key milestones in NeueHouse’s growth and funding history include:

• 2013 – First New York City Location: NeueHouse opened its first workspace in Manhattan in May 2013, converting a former Tepper Galleries building on East 25th Street into a lavish multi-level club. It launched with much buzz (including a glossy print NeueJournal) and a waiting list of “jetsetting digital nomads” drawn to its mix of work and social spaces. The concept caught on during the early 2010s coworking boom.

• 2015 – Hollywood Expansion and Major Funding: Two years later, in October 2015, NeueHouse unveiled its Hollywood location in L.A.’s vintage CBS Studios complex. That same year, it raised $25 million in venture funding from investors led by Great Eagle Holdings (a Hong Kong real estate firm) to fuel expansion. The Hollywood “house” quickly became a cultural hotspot, hosting Netflix Emmy after-parties, art installations, and talks with stars – all amid mid-century design interiors.

• 2016–2018 – Rapid Growth and Overspending: As NeueHouse’s profile grew, so did its ambitions – and expenses. The company began lavish build-outs of additional spaces. It announced plans for a 60,000 ft² London flagship in the Art Deco Adelphi building and scouted sites in Shanghai and Miami. Internally, however, costs were spiraling. Former executives say management “dramatically overspent on everything”, going $40 million over budget on expansion projects. In late 2018, NeueHouse’s investors injected another $30 million and installed new leadership to try to steady the ship. The London project was scrapped by 2017 as losses mounted.

• 2020 – Near Collapse and Rescue Merger: Even before COVID-19, NeueHouse was running out of cash. Huge leases and operating costs left it “burdened by legacy liabilities”, according to its own later admission. In early 2020, the company reportedly sought a buyer or new capital. Salvation came in July 2020, when Yoram Roth – a German real estate scion and art collector – acquired NeueHouse for $35 million and merged it with Fotografiska, a Stockholm-based photography museum, under a new parent company called CultureWorks. Roth’s vision was to integrate cultural programming and optimize operations, believing “community” was the “secret sauce” for success. Around the same time, the company managed to open its Downtown L.A. Bradbury Building site (in January 2020, mere weeks before pandemic lockdowns) and later re-opened with Roth’s backing.

• 2021–2022 – Reinvention and New Ventures: Under Roth, NeueHouse tried to diversify revenue. It added trendy hospitality offerings, including a pop-up restaurant (Broken Spanish by Chef Ray Garcia) and a vinyl listening lounge at the Hollywood house. In 2022, it launched an ambitious in-house restaurant brand called Reunion – first at the Venice location and then in Hollywood – aiming to provide full “day-to-night” amenities. However, these forays into food and beverage proved costly and outside the core co-working business. Several former employees described the restaurant move as an “expensive failure,” diverting focus and money. The planned Miami location fell apart, and by late 2022 the company began pulling back on expansion plans.

• 2023 – Retrenchment and Mounting Losses: Facing continuing losses, NeueHouse undertook major cuts in 2022–23. Nearly half of its ~300 staff were laid off. Most of the top executives departed, leaving Roth and his chairman to run operations in a lean mode. The Bradbury Building lease was exited in December 2023 to cut costs. Nevertheless, revenue was plummeting: the Hollywood site’s revenue fell to just $2.5 million in Q1 2025, down one-third from the year prior. By March 2025, NeueHouse’s total debt had ballooned to $83.7 million, according to internal financial documents. At this point, the company was teetering with heavy “legacy” debts and unpaid rents.

• September 2025 – Chapter 7 and Shutdown: On September 3, 2025, NeueHouse’s board announced it would wind down the business entirely. All three remaining locations ceased operations by September 5, as the firm prepared to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation). Interviews with former executives and staff, published after the closure, pointed to fundamental “mismanagement” as a root cause – an enterprise that grew too fast, spent too freely, and “was never really set up to succeed” despite its cool-factor cachet.

In the span of about 12 years, NeueHouse went from one of the most celebrated new workspace concepts to a “tragic story” of unrealized aspirations and debt. Its rise and fall neatly encapsulate the volatile evolution of the coworking industry over the past decade.

The Coworking Club Trend and a Market Transformed

NeueHouse was part of a broader coworking and flexible office space boom in the 2010s that upended traditional office leasing. Venture capital poured into shared workspace startups, fueling rapid expansion by companies like WeWork, which grew at breakneck speed until its infamous crash in 2019. By offering short-term leases, trendy design, and communal perks, coworking operators tapped into the needs of startups and freelancers – and later, larger firms seeking satellite offices.

However, the industry’s fortunes shifted dramatically in the early 2020s. COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 emptied offices overnight, threatening coworking business models that rely on dense in-person usage. Even as offices reopened, the rise of remote and hybrid work meant fewer workers coming in daily, and many companies downsized their office footprints. For coworking spaces, this resulted in membership cancellations, revenue loss, and excess capacity. Many did not survive: for example, The Wing – a women-focused boutique coworking club once valued at $365 million – abruptly closed all six of its remaining locations in 2022 after its parent company withdrew support, citing an “extremely challenging” operating environment.

By 2023, the industry’s biggest player, WeWork, was also on the brink. Saddled with huge lease obligations and declining occupancy, WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2023, marking a stunning fall for a company once valued at $47 billion. Other flex-space firms like Knotel (which catered to enterprise clients) had already collapsed in 2021. In short, the coworking frenzy cooled as reality set in: profitability was elusive and the pandemic had altered the demand calculus.

Within this context, NeueHouse’s challenges were twofold. First, it faced the same macro headwinds as others – fewer people coming into offices and an oversupply of space. Second, NeueHouse targeted the high-end, hospitality-infused segment of the market, which carried its own pressures. Running chic clubhouses with gourmet restaurants, curated events, and plush interiors is expensive. That model works only if membership fees and event revenues cover the high operating costs – something that became hard to sustain when membership growth stalled. NeueHouse charged steep prices (roughly $3,600 per year for individual memberships and up to $8,000 per month for private office suites). Those fees made sense when clients were eager to pay for premium experiences. But as one ex-exec noted, “There were fundamental flaws… huge aspirations… yet the business had never been set up to succeed” at scale. In leaner times, the lavish extras became a financial albatross.

Moreover, competition intensified. By the mid-2020s, many upscale hotels and social clubs (Soho House with its “Soho Works” spaces, for example) as well as established coworking firms were courting the same professional clientele. Landlords in cities like New York and L.A. also began offering “spec suites” and short-term leases directly, effectively emulating coworking flexibility to fill empty floors. All of this made it harder for boutique operators to carve out a profitable niche. As one industry observer put it, NeueHouse not only “went for large spaces at scale,” but also layered on complex experiential offerings – a combination that brings risks and complicates the business. When economic winds shifted, that bold strategy left little margin for error.

Office Market Realities in NeueHouse’s Key Cities

The struggles of coworking brands like NeueHouse are inseparable from the wider office real estate trends in major U.S. cities. New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco – where the company operated – have all been grappling with high office vacancies, stagnant leasing, and expensive leases in the wake of the pandemic. These market conditions formed the backdrop that both enabled NeueHouse’s rise and hastened its fall. Recent data from MMCG’s market reports (sourced from CoStar analyses) help illustrate the landscape:

• New York City: Surprisingly, New York’s office market has been mounting a recovery and in some ways “is arguably outperforming all other major U.S. office markets”. As of Q4 2025, Manhattan’s overall office vacancy rate stands around 13.3%, which is elevated compared to pre-pandemic (~8% in 2019) but lower than most peer cities. In fact, positive momentum has returned – over the past 12 months New York saw a net absorption of about 7.6 million sq. ft., meaning more office space was leased than vacated. This was the sixth consecutive quarter of positive absorption in NYC, signaling that companies are slowly expanding again or at least halting the downsizing. Asking rents in Manhattan have ticked up a mere 0.1% in the past year on average, reflecting landlords’ efforts to hold the line even as tenants retain negotiating power. A flight-to-quality is evident: virtually all of 2025’s top new leases were in high-end (“4- and 5-star”) buildings. Those trophy towers near transit hubs are drawing tenants and even approaching pre-2020 leasing levels, whereas older, less amenitized buildings languish. Notably, new construction in NYC has slowed to a trickle – only 6.5 million sq. ft. is currently under construction, down from 21 million in early 2020. With so few new offices coming online, landlords have even begun converting some aging offices to residences to chip away at oversupply. This dynamic helped New York avoid the worst outcomes, and it partially explains why NeueHouse’s Manhattan site may have fared better for longer than its L.A. counterparts (Manhattan rebounded sooner with workers returning at nation-leading rates). Even so, NYC’s modest rent growth and high availability mean upscale venues still face fierce competition to attract tenants and members.

• Los Angeles: If New York is edging into recovery, Los Angeles’s office market remains “challenged” and sluggish by comparison. Greater L.A.’s vacancy rate hit roughly 16.0% – a historic high for the region and about 2 percentage points above the national average vacancy. In mid-2025 L.A. enjoyed a brief quarter of positive leasing (Q2 saw a small +102,000 sq. ft. net absorption), but that progress was short-lived. Over the last 12 months, Los Angeles net absorption was about –2 million sq. ft., meaning the market gave up more space than it filled. Asking rents have actually declined slightly (≈–0.3% year-on-year) as landlords compete for scarce tenants. Average rents for quality office space in L.A. are around the mid-$40s per sq. ft. per year (gross) metro-wide, significantly cheaper than New York’s averages. New construction in L.A. has essentially stalled: only ~423,000 sq. ft. of new office space delivered in the past year, and hardly any projects are now breaking ground. The pipeline under construction is minimal, reflecting developers’ hesitation to add supply in a weak environment. For coworking operators in L.A., this meant two things: lots of empty offices competing (often subleased at discount by struggling landlords) and little expansion by tenants to drive demand. Indeed, L.A.’s sprawling layout and car-centric culture made the return-to-office slower and more uneven than in NYC. By 2025, entertainment and tech firms (critical member bases for spaces like NeueHouse Hollywood and Venice) were themselves downsizing or opting for flexible schedules – and the Hollywood labor strikes of 2023 further depressed local demand for offices and event venues. NeueHouse’s Los Angeles clubhouses thus faced a double whammy: a tough macro market and the company’s own overextension and debt. The result was a vacancy of their own – prime real estate suddenly left empty. (Already, landlords like Kilroy Realty, which owns the Venice building, have had to market the vacated NeueHouse spaces amid a glut of offices citywide.)

• San Francisco: While NeueHouse did not have a San Francisco location, the city’s coworking and office trends are emblematic of the post-pandemic woes facing premium office space – and thus provide context for boutique brands. San Francisco’s office market was arguably the hardest hit in the nation following 2020, and it remains deeply impacted. The vacancy rate in SF soared above 23% in 2023–2024 and sits around 23.2% as of late 2025. That means nearly a quarter of all office space – about 48.9 million sq. ft. – is available for lease in the San Francisco metro. Downtown asking rents have plunged, now roughly 30% lower than in 2019 on average, as landlords slash pricing to lure tenants. The carnage was driven by a tech industry pullback and widespread adoption of remote work in the Bay Area. Net absorption in San Francisco only turned slightly positive in mid-2025 (+240,000 sq. ft. over 12 months) after years of steep move-outs. Interestingly, a bright spot for SF has been the AI sector: a surge of leasing by artificial intelligence startups and expansions by firms like OpenAI and Anthropic helped boost demand in 2025. Brokers report that “most companies intending to downsize have already made those changes” by now, so the worst of the space give-backs may be over. Even so, with nearly 9 million sq. ft. of offices still being sublet by companies that don’t need them, San Francisco has a long road to recovery. Developers essentially halted projects – new construction is at record-low levels here too. Local officials are pushing conversions of empty offices to housing, but that will take years and significant investment. For the flexible workspace sector, San Francisco’s turmoil underscores a broader point: the premium on office space evaporated in many markets, and supply-demand imbalance put pricing power in the hands of tenants, not space providers. A boutique coworking club in SF would have faced tremendous pressure, needing to offer steep discounts or concessions to attract members when traditional offices were available at bargain rates.

In sum, major U.S. office hubs are in a period of correction. New York is showing resilience with improving absorption and stable rents, Los Angeles remains sluggish with historically high vacancies, and San Francisco exemplifies the severe challenges of excess supply. Nationally, office vacancy hovered in the mid-teens (around 14%–18% by various measures) in 2025 – well above pre-pandemic norms – and landlords nationwide have been offering generous concessions to fill space. This environment has been unforgiving for coworking operators: their core value proposition (convenient, ready-to-use office space) is less compelling when empty offices abound and lease terms are increasingly flexible across the market.

Pressures on Premium Boutique Coworking Brands

NeueHouse’s collapse, coming on the heels of other coworking stumbles, signals mounting pressure on the “premium” segment of the flexible office industry. These boutique brands set out to deliver more than a desk and Wi-Fi – they promised an experience: stylish design, networking events, cultural programming, and luxe amenities from espresso bars to screening rooms. The model attracted buzz and high-profile members during the economic boom, but its sustainability is now in doubt.

One fundamental challenge is economies of scale. Large coworking chains (like Regus or WeWork in its heyday) spread costs over hundreds of locations and thousands of customers, albeit with their own issues. A boutique firm with only a handful of sites has a smaller cushion when membership revenues dip. NeueHouse, for instance, had at most four locations operating at its peak. Its cost base – including multi-million-dollar buildouts and hefty long-term leases – proved far too high for that footprint once growth stalled. Fixed costs (rent, staff, utilities) can quickly overwhelm a niche operator if occupancy falters.

Another pressure point is market positioning during downturns. Premium coworking clubs often target industries like media, tech, fashion, and entertainment. These sectors can be volatile. When Hollywood productions ground to a halt during strikes, for example, venues like NeueHouse lost event bookings and memberships from furloughed professionals. In a recession or slow period, companies and individuals also tend to trim discretionary spending – and a high-end club membership might be seen as expendable. Contrast this with cheaper coworking options or basic serviced offices that appeal purely on cost savings; in lean times, budget-friendly choices have an edge in attracting downsizers.

Furthermore, shifts in work culture post-2020 have somewhat diluted the appeal of the exclusive in-person club model. Remote work tools and virtual communities have proliferated. While many professionals miss the camaraderie and networking of a physical space, they may not need it five days a week. This reduces the perceived value of an expensive full-time membership. Some premium clubs responded by offering hybrid packages or social-only memberships, but those generate less revenue per user. NeueHouse did try to emphasize community – “a center of creativity, community, design and innovation,” as its board’s farewell letter put it – yet that mission was ultimately undermined by financial realities.

Finally, access to capital has tightened. The easy venture funding of the 2010s that underwrote rapid expansion (and tolerance for losses) in the coworking sector has dried up. Investors are now far more skeptical of the flexible-office model’s profitability. WeWork’s implosion, in particular, made raising money difficult for all coworking businesses – the bloom is off the rose. Boutique clubs without deep-pocketed backers or a path to profitability have found themselves stranded. NeueHouse’s owners explored many avenues to “find a sustainable path forward … exploring every possible solution” before opting to wind down. In the end, no savior emerged this time, unlike in 2020 when Roth stepped in.

The broader implication is that premium coworking brands may need to rethink their models. Some industry experts suggest focusing on leaner operations – smaller, profitable locations rather than grand “urban clubhouses.” Others see opportunity in partnerships (for instance, hotels or real estate firms teaming up with coworking clubs to share costs). There is also the example of Soho House’s coworking arm: it leverages existing club infrastructure and a large membership network, essentially subsidizing workspaces as an added perk rather than a standalone profit center. Such hybrid approaches might be more resilient.

What is clear is that the concept of flexible, beautifully curated workspaces isn’t going away – but it must align with new market economics. In cities like New York, LA, and SF, office usage is evolving: tenants demand flexibility, and only top-tier spaces thrive while older ones struggle. Coworking could yet benefit if companies shy from long leases and opt to rotate through shared spaces. However, any operators will have to run a tighter ship financially than the free-spending days of the 2010s.

As for NeueHouse, its spectacular rise and fall will likely be studied as a cautionary tale. It showed how blending hospitality and coworking can create magical environments and “a home for trailblazers,” but also how quickly that magic can unravel if costs run out of control. In the final analysis, NeueHouse’s collapse underscores that even glamour and a devoted community can’t defy economic gravity. When the office market’s foundations shifted and the bill came due on past excesses, the club that once symbolized the future of work became another casualty of an industry still finding its post-pandemic footing.

October 22, 2025, by a collective authors of MMCG Invest, office feasibility study consultants.

Sources:

• Los Angeles Times – “NeueHouse abruptly shutters trendy L.A. co-working clubs, citing financial challenges” (Sept. 5, 2025)

• Los Angeles Times – “Inside the meteoric rise and cataclysmic fall of NeueHouse” (Oct. 20, 2025)

• Los Angeles Times – NeueHouse timeline and interviews (Oct. 2025)

• NeueHouse official statement (Sept. 2025) via LA Times reporting

• CoStar/MMCG – New York Office Market Report (Oct. 22, 2025)

• CoStar/MMCG – Los Angeles Office Market Report (Oct. 22, 2025)

• CoStar/MMCG – San Francisco Office Market Report (Oct. 22, 2025)

• Wikipedia – NeueHouse (company history and funding)

• Additional industry news via Fortune & Business Insider on The Wing’s closure (Aug. 30, 2022)