L.A. Parking Garage Gets New Life as Wellness Oasis
For concierge wellness doctor Jonathan Leary, the path to creating his wellness social club Remedy Place in Los Angeles was almost five years in the making. But his decision to set up shop in a renovated parking garage in West Hollywood took more than a year to solidify.
“It was the perfect area, but it was a parking garage," Leary explains. “Even being a very visual person, I just couldn't imagine it." Twelve months later, Leary and his team of designers from Bells+Whistles, a local interior design firm, revisited the 5,500-square foot-shell at 8305 Sunset Blvd. “They had put up some cement walls to start dividing the space and I thought, 'I think I can make this work,'" he says.
With a location finally selected, B+W designers Barbara Rourke, Jason St. John, and Bailey Lafitte Chronister set out to bring Leary's vision to life. Conceived as a space “to teach people how to introduce self care into their life," Leary was clear about one thing: this would not be like other whitewashed medical or wellness environments.
“When you go into a hospital or a clinic, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up, and that is uncomfortable," Leary explains. "So how are you going to go heal when the first reaction of your body is to go into a shocked state?"
Instead, Leary charged B+W with creating a “dark, sexy, and cozy" space more akin to a hotel or residential environment where members could partake in treatments like cryotherapy, ice baths, and sessions in a Hyberbaric chamber, or have a therapeutic vitamin IV at an alcohol-free bar. “I needed to create a club atmosphere that can make people feel social but cut away all the temptations and toxins," Leary says. “I needed Remedy Place to look like a place [where] someone would actually socialize."
The result is a minimal monochromatic environment that is rich with textures like velvet and leather upholstery, brushed concrete floors, and painted Venetian plaster walls and ceilings. The charcoal and chocolate color palette is only interrupted by pops of green from the ample fresh plants throughout the space.
“We don't often get to do spaces that are this dark and moody," Rourke explains. “Jonathan definitely wanted something very dark, intimate, and the opposite of clinical."
At the front, a dramatic marble-topped bar breaks the mold of typical juice bars with smoky walnut wood slatting on the wall and tinted light bulbs. There, members can select from a menu of teas, coffees, infused kombucha, NA (non-alcoholic) cocktails, nutrient shots, or tonics. Instead of a Bloody Mary cart, Leary asked for an IV cart.
Meanwhile, a central steel and glass meditation room offers a space for classes, presentations, and video projection. The rest of the space is occupied by treatment rooms that are private or semi-private, and offer remedies including massages, cryo chambers, a compression lounge, hyperbaric chambers, and a sauna.
With the grand opening scheduled for Jan. 10, Leary is already planning to expand with four more locations in Los Angeles and hopes to introduce Remedy Place to New York City in the near future.
"It turned out better than the renderings, it turned out better than I could have ever dreamed of," Leary says. "I'm open to seeing where society and the universe pulls us."
