The club is pretty upscale and attracted the rich and famous (not quite sure how I got in); my mother is still recovering from when I took her along and Hugh Grant was sitting at the next table in tennis shorts.
I'm an early riser and would go over to the club for my breakfast on a Saturday morning and often the only people in the room were Princess Di, her clandestine liaison and me behind my FT.
The club was run with great efficiency: immaculate standards and impeccable staff. But then something rather tragic happened – a little while ago it was acquired by David Lloyd Leisure who own 80 clubs in the UK and are the biggest leisure operator in Europe. I'm sure they were very excited about acquiring such a premium brand along with the premium fees they can charge to be a member but sadly they are running it just like any one of their other clubs and it has all gone a bit pear shaped. Standards have slipped and they are steadily chipping away at the Harbour Club brand values.
Why am I telling you all this? Because as I'm sure you're aware it's a very common tale – big companies often buy small brands for their dynamism, their culture and their thinking only to squeeze the life out of them by imposing their own heavy handed corporate practices.
It's why Yahoo bought Tumblr, or Hewlett-Packard bought Autonomy, or Coca Cola bought Innocent, or Bacardi acquired Grey Goose. I'm sure you can think of countless more examples and many of the new owners will get it right by preserving the brand essence of what they've paid so much money for and not killing the golden goose (or indeed Grey Goose) but far more of them will get it wrong, just like David Lloyd and Chelsea Harbour Club.
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