Clermont Lounge

The Clermont Lounge is Atlanta's first and longest continually operating strip club, opened in 1965 and boasts a completely female ownership. Located in the basement of the Clermont Motor Hotel at 789 Ponce De Leon Avenue, in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood, the dive bar^[1] has survived multiple attempts at being closed by the Atlanta city government, and has established a nationwide reputation for its kitschy atmosphere and unusual dancers.^{[citation needed]} The Clermont has been featured on an episode of Insomniac with Dave Attell. Celebrities known to have visited the Clermont when in Atlanta include Anthony Bourdain, Colin Firth, Marilyn Manson, Cole Sprouse, Ashton Kutcher, Kid Rock, Steven Yeun, Skinny Lister, Lady Gaga, Eric Roberts, Ming Chen, Jason Zimmerman and the Guys Weekend as well as David Cross and Bombay Bicycle Club. Visitors to the Clermont usually alternate between a few handfuls of regulars and large numbers of college students, newcomers to town, and tourists.

The Clermont does not serve food or draft beer, nor does it accept credit cards. The single dancer's stage is located in the middle of a circular bar, and the dancers choose (and pay for) their own songs on the in-house jukebox, as the club normally does not have an actual DJ.

History

The Clermont Motor Hotel was built in 1924 and was originally an apartment building after its construction, but was later renovated to a hotel format. An early advertisement for a nightclub in the basement space is dated 1947 and the club was the "Anchorage Club". Later tenants included the "Gypsy Club" (c. 1951–1954), and "The Continental Room" (1954) before returning to the Anchorage name from about 1956 until 1963, when it was briefly known as the "Atlanta Playboy Club", an unofficial attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Hugh Hefner's magazine. A lawsuit closed the Atlanta Playboy Club. By 1965, the "Jungle Club" opened its doors within the Clermont Hotel. In 1968, the "Clermont Lounge" opened for business and has remained in place ever since. The entire building was sold to new owners in 2003.

Though sharing a building and half of a name, the Clermont Lounge and the Clermont Hotel above it are completely separate business entities. The lounge remained open even after the motel was closed and the lounge only closed for a brief period during the hotel's renovation. The hotel and the lounge are so separate that you can't access the lounge from anywhere inside the hotel. The Clermont Lounge has its own separate entrance in the back of the building near the hotel's valet parking area.

In December 2009, the health department ordered the hotel to close for numerous health-code violations, including dirty linen, old bedding, bed bug stains, mold growing on the walls, black water spilling from faucets, and broken toilet fixtures.^[2]^[3]

Fairway Capital put the property on the market for sale in 2010. Clermont Hotel Partners LLC eventually bought it in January 2013 with the intent to redevelop the property as a boutique hotel.^[4] In 2018, the hotel reopened after an extensive renovation that brought the facility up to code while restoring and preserving the iconic details of the Clermont^[5] The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.^[6]

In popular culture

Just a few months before his death of a heroin overdose, shock rocker GG Allin wrote the song "Hotel Clermont (My Whorehouse)", released as the B-side to his 1993 single "Look Into My Eyes and Hate Me", during a period spent living in Room 216 of the adjacent hotel.^[7]

Bubba Sparxxx released the track 'Claremont Lounge', which uses a different spelling but was likely in reference to the Clermont.^[8]

The Atlanta-based band The Constellations released a track titled "Step Right Up" which references the Clermont by name.