Inspired by the exclusive international members-only hotel Soho House, Collingwood’s Saint Haven is a private wellness club where a select few can work out, recover, relax, eat and socialise. As you’d expect from the hefty membership fees (ranging from $130 to $1000 per week), it’s off-the-charts luxurious and arguably Melbourne’s most exclusive gym.

Opened by property developer Tim Gurner in April 2023, its 500 members wear high-tech Oura smart rings to track sleep, activity and recovery levels. The scent of lavender essential oil flows through the air and every room has soft curves, beige tones and calm lighting. Music plays at different frequencies throughout the day – higher in the morning and calmer in the afternoon.

Guests enter via Wellington Street into a warm concierge lounge – apparently inspired by buzzy Puglia resort Borgo Egnazia – where linen-clad staff greet them by name. A marble high-top bar is lined with heating panels and dark green velvet bar stools, but there’s no booze here. Cocktails are shaken up with alcohol-free Lyre’s and Seedlip spirits, or there’s St Ali coffee, naturopathic tea, refreshing elixirs such as salted umeboshi plum and apple cider vinegar, and protein smoothies in flavours like salted caramel or strawberries and cream.

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Also on-site is a light-filled organic wholefoods restaurant which will open to the public by the end of the year. Head chef Chad Lynch (ex-Fargo & Co, Bottega) and nutritionist Luke Hines have developed a menu of nourishing meals, tonics and smoothies. Industrial seed oils and refined sugars are banned from the kitchen; only extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, pure maple syrup and monkfruit sugar are used.

Breakfast options include hemp Bircher muesli with green apple and goji berries, vegetable frittata made with Milawa eggs, kimchi omelette, spiced zucchini and corn fritters, and banana cinnamon pancakes. Lunch offers build-your-own bowls with black rice, seasonal veggies and sauerkraut with wild-caught salmon, poached chicken or beef sausages from Victoria’s Cherry Tree Organics, topped with avocado, cashew cheese and dukkah.

The main event is Saint Haven’s lavish wellness centre. It includes a candlelit grotto-inspired bathhouse with a 35-degree thermal mineral pool enriched with Himalayan rock salts and an ice plunge bath set between 6 and 8 degrees. There’s a two-tiered cedarwood sauna, an aromatherapy steam room with filtered water, and a sunken waterproof lounge where members can socialise between dips while house music hums in the background.

At the end of an illuminated arched corridor is a strength and conditioning studio. It’s modelled after luxury gyms and features timber floors; cold, scented towels; top-of-the-line treadmills, bikes and weights; Olympic-grade weightlifting racks; and more. If group fitness is more your thing, there’s a dedicated HIIT room, a reformer Pilates studio with circular mirrors overhead, and a cycle studio. The cycle program was developed by professional racer Simon Gerrans, and the room is pitch-black except for coloured nightclub-inspired lights and a floor-to-ceiling screen that tracks your performance. Naturally, there’s also a yoga room, lit by pillar candles, and a meditation “cave” for breath work. Both the wellness centre and performance studio have change rooms with heated floors, copper fittings and individual shower rooms.

The centre is also home to four massage-treatment rooms and a moody recovery and skin-treatment room. Reclined leather beds hidden behind linen curtains are used for pulsed electromagnetic therapy, and vitamin and mineral infusions through intravenous drips. Other stations are dotted around the room – each with a placard explaining their purported health benefits – including an infrared sauna, cryotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) chambers.

While these types of “anti-ageing” therapies are increasingly popular, they vary in effectiveness according to your baseline health (and many lack scientific backing). For example, healthy people won’t get much from vitamin and mineral drips compared to those who are vitamin- or mineral-deficient, and they can cause side effects. And while cryotherapy and HBOT are generally safe, those with underlying issues such as heart or respiratory conditions should consult with a medical professional to avoid complications.

So is all this worth it? If someone truly wants to invest in themselves (and they have the means) then yes, says general manager Sean Carey. “[Members are] going to be making better lifestyle choices,” Carey says. “They’re not going to be spending $120 buying a round of drinks [or] visiting the physio every quarter because they’ve got lower back pain after sitting down too much after work.”

In any event, Saint Haven has reached its capacity of 500 members. Those who still want to get their foot in the door are invited to sign up to the online waitlist for Saint Haven’s next two locations (still under wraps, but watch this space). There’s also a waitlist for the Collingwood site; those who sign up will receive regular email updates following a three-step application, which prompts you to write about what you hope to get out of Saint Haven and has an option to add a reference. “Success for us is our members truly feeling better than when they first walked in the door,” says Carey.

Saint Haven
23 Wellington Street, Collingwood
(03) 8203 2298

Hours
Mon to Fri 5.30am–9pm
Sat 7am–7pm
Sun 8am–6pm

sainthaven.com.au