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All but the bald chain-smoker will probably want a shower at the end of the evening. The most remarkable development of the past two decades, decorwise, is the recent remodel of the restrooms, previously a challenge for the public-facilities sensitive. People love this place. Rightly so. Celebrities are drawn by its atmosphere -- and the strict no-cameras policy.
Anthony Bourdain was a fan. The Clermont Lounge has a new friend in the Hotel Clermont. Tiny Lou's is named after a dancer who performed at a basement club predating the Clermont Lounge. Think velvet, rattan, wicker and florals with lots of bold wallpaper. There are 94 rooms, including several suites and a collection of four-bed bunk rooms geared toward friends traveling together. The developer, Oliver Hospitality, bought the building in , and there was never any question of closing the lounge.
Martin, the lounge owner, is happy with the change. She wasn't sure who would buy the shuttered hotel or whether the buyers would keep the club. But it's something that can't be replicated anywhere else, and that's a bonus. The lounge continues to lease space in the building, and the businesses are owned and operated independently. The hotel is closed to the public through Super Bowl weekend for a slate of ticketed events including rooftop DJ sets hosted by Jermaine Dupri and DJ Mars and a celebrity game night presented by rapper T.
However, the lounge will be open later than usual and for the first time on a Sunday. Changing landscape. Atlanta's redevelopment inspires mixed feelings. Chris Sinon and Arielle Valdez, a something couple, were having drinks on Hotel Clermont's rooftop on a Saturday evening. They're fans of the Clermont Lounge and feel a little torn about the building's transformation.
It's nice to see it revitalized, Valdez said, but it's also a prime example of what's happening in the hotel's Poncey-Highland neighborhood -- and across the city -- where upscale development is driving up housing prices.
The rooftop -- an Instagrammer's delight with neon signs and skyline views -- is a little "bougie," Valdez said, compared with the no-frills, no-photos lounge. Still, it was the pair's second rooftop visit. Unless you work for a certain lifestyle site that rhymes with "illest", obviously.
Skip to main content Atlanta Lifestyle. Sebastian Davis. The jukebox is for dancers only. The bar is mostly black duct tape. Blondie has been there for 35 years. Saturday night is disco dance night. Make Fun. Thrillist Serves. Enter your email address Subscribe.
Social Media Links. How did a writer from Leavenworth, Kan. During the three years I worked on the project, I often asked myself that very question.
Hard work? Pure lunacy? A view from the lounge's parking lot of the radio tower atop the Clermont Hotel. We are all freaks, I suppose. Human beings connect through universal stories of love and loss, pain and joy, and the women I met at the Clermont Lounge are no different. I saw Christine, the something dayside bartender, standing outside gently patting perspiration off her forehead in the heat of July, then, switching to an overly theatrical and animated flap of a makeshift napkin fan.
My first interview was with Kathi, and part way through, I realized that Christine was onto something: It was hot as lava inside the Clermont. When our interview wrapped, Kathi told me in a hushed tone, like she was letting me in on a big secret, that Little Kathy, the woman playing the video poker game in the corner near the bathroom, was recently diagnosed with stage-four lung and bone cancer.
I got to know Little Kathy and her daughter Maggie, who at the time had recently started her own second stint as a dancer at the Clermont. We had several very intense interviews in which Little Kathy talked about her children and how her life at the Clermont was meant to provide better than what she had growing up in North Carolina. According to her, the Clermont gave them more than they ever had.
A home. A car. The first time my mother had cancer, back in , seemed like a Sunday stroll through Piedmont Park compared to what the second bout brought.
It had me, my siblings, spouses, aunts and close family friends sharing Excel spreadsheets with color-coded blocks of weeks mapped out and scheduled times to fly back to Kansas to be with my mom during her biopsy, two rounds of chemo and a stem-cell transplant, to ensure she was never alone.
My father had died in It was an aggressive treatment that would save her life. Or at least buy her some time. As they worked, I wore a headset and transcribed hours of audio files from my interviews with the women of the Clermont Lounge. On my trips back and forth between Atlanta and Kansas City, I was hitting my stride on the Clermont book. I felt I was getting into the guts of the place as owner Tracey Brown recounted fantastic stories about how Mac, the late longtime owner of the Clermont, willed the lounge to her and Kathi.
I was particularly interested by the stories of the Clermont lifers — a core group of women who have worked at the Clermont including Tracey and Kathi for more than 25 years. I found this absolutely remarkable. By fall of , I was finally understanding the full scope of the story.
I was sucked into the life of the Clermont Lounge. I began to grasp why people go there. But there was a difference. I was not a mere observer. Like the women I was studying, I was paid to be there. Some of their stories were straight-up weird. Some were very sad. Some were hilarious. Some were gross. With some, I wished I had experienced them myself because they sounded so fun. It was really tough to decipher what was important to the women. I wanted honesty, but I never wanted to exploit them.
So I began asking myself questions. Do I include interviews from people on drugs? Do I include stories that seem to change overnight? What part is the truth? Do I include stories about women who were no longer working at the Clermont? I just tried to use my best judgment. I tried to approach the project bearing the heaviness of a single question: If this were my sister or daughter, what would I want the world to know about her? But I could never forget that a night at the Clermont Lounge is an incredibly good time.
Porsha, the oldest dancer at the Clermont, works to support a loved one with a chronic, debilitating ailment.
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