In 1987 it agreed, with a sigh, to let women join. Now the Alta Club, Utah's most famous bastion of exclusivity, is letting in . . . anybody.
True, it's only for 50 minutes at a time, and only for a tour. Still, for many Utahns it will be their first chance to walk through the club's cloistered rooms. Saturday's tour, conducted by the Utah Heritage Foundation, marks the first time the club is opening its doors to the public.
Those doors have made waves and headlines over the years. When it was founded in 1883, the Alta Club didn't let Mormons join. Founded by the territory's mining and banking barons, it was conceived as a place where a man could smoke a cigar in a plush chair among other men just like him.
The Mormon ban was lifted by the turn of the century, but it took nearly another century, and the threat of lawsuits and a boycott, for the club to admit women members. By then the club had already taken down the "Ladies Entrance" sign on its side door. But the real problem, argued groups like Women Lawyers of Utah, was that a lot of Salt Lake's wheeling and dealing went on in those understated, men-only rooms. Or, as Salt Lake attorney Brian Barnard puts it now, "it was offensive that women should be excluded from a stuffy old place full of movers and shakers."
Women lawyers, bankers and business owners began their boycott of the Alta Club in 1984, a boycott conducted "by women and men who like women," says former state legislator Genevieve Atwood. A year later, on what Barnard describes as a slow day at the office, he decided to send his assistant, Megan Peters, over to the club to ask for an application. When she was refused, Barnard sued. In 1987, in a 153-55 vote, the club ended its ban.
Peters actually couldn't afford to join. But Atwood could, becoming the club's first female member. "I made the pill go down a little more easily," says Atwood, who has fond memories of going to the club with her father when she was a little girl. "We used to go there every Wednesday for breakfast during Lent. My dad used to take us all to the men's room and we'd get a shot of Bay Rum" cologne.
After all the boycotting and fuss, it turned out that women didn't apply in droves. Today only about 40 of the club's 410 resident members are women. The average age of members used to be in the upper 60s, but since the addition of fitness equipment nine years ago it has dropped to 60. The club's management would not divulge the going price for membership and dues but did say that the club's recent renovation cost $4 million.
Although it used to have a waiting list, the club is actually hoping to attract some new members. Perhaps the posh building on South Temple doesn't have the cachet it once did. Like other clubs of its ilk, the Alta Club survives without benefit of a golf course or swimming pool, and it's no longer the only place to wheel and deal.
Still, it remains a reminder that Salt Lake did — and does — have an elite. "I think it kind of has a mystique about it," says Mary Lou Gottschall of the Utah Heritage Foundation about the Alta Club. Its tours of the club will be Saturday, April 13, at 10 and 11 a.m., as well as April 27, May 11 and May 25.
E-MAIL: jarvik@desnews.com