Sunset Magazine
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A Lounge for Inspiration
Part art gallery, part performance space, part martini bar: Belltown’s McLeod Residence just might change your life
By Ali Basye
A jazz trio works a mixed-bag crowd of artist-types of all ages. Pretty young women sip cosmos while a group of tattooed rockabilly folks ham in front of a photo booth. Someone quietly sketches an impromptu portrait of the scene. The back-room bar, bathed in an electric neon glow, is mellow but for some guys engaged in an animated political discussion. It’s a typical night at Belltown’s McLeod Residence, the second-story gallery and lounge that opened earlier this year. And, as usual, anything can happen.
As you climb the flight of stairs, it’s clear that this is no ordinary gallery – or lounge, for that matter. Rather than the bright, airy lofts common to most urban art spaces, here the walls are cloaked in vivacious rococo-style wallpaper, with crystal-like chandeliers gently illuminating a robin’s-egg blue ceiling.
A maze of small rooms, some with closed, ancient-looking doors, fan out from the foyer. The 2,700-square-foot layout looks not unlike the classic board game Clue, a comparison that cofounders Buster McLeod and Lele McLeod might well approve of. Nope, they’re not married or related. As longtime friends, they decided to change their names – just for the fun of it. (It was a toss-up between “Butterfield” and “McLeod.”)
“Buster and I used to sit and draw our dream houses,” Lele says, recalling back to 1985, the early days of their friendship when they were both 9 years old. “McLeod Residence kind of grew out of that.”
The décor does hark back to a child’s fantasy space, if the child in question is especially precocious and sophisticated, a la The Royal Tenenbaums.
A free, touch-screen digital photo booth greets visitors with displays of flashing images from recent parties. Six separate rooms are open to the public during the day and feature rotating exhibitions of mostly contemporary art – much of it interactive, exploring themes of science and technology. (Although Lele, the curator, is known to sprinkle in 19th-century works.)
The bar and lounge area reads more like a 1960s rumpus room, with a leather sofa and a wall brandishing large neon artworks, including one made of mixed-and-matched glowing letters arranged ransom-note-style, demanding “Nineteen million dollars in unmarked bills.”
But it is one of the most childlike aspects of McLeod that is also its central tenet: membership, to what feels like a secret society. The club operates partially on funds raised from 300 members’ dues, which range from $75 each year to a one-time $300 lifetime fee. Besides the perks – invitations to parties, art openings, a drink of your own on the cocktail menu – membership is an attempt to create a sense of belonging to a group that encourages the pursuit of an imaginative, daring, and gratifying lifestyle.
“We wanted to open a space to help people achieve their personal goals,” Lele says. The art gallery was Lele’s idea, and Buster knew that drinks couldn’t hurt. The collective result is an inspiring, inviting environment where locals come together in the name of creativity.
To that end, McLeod members use the bar-gallery to meet, mingle, and share their ideas, as well as realize their dreams and ambitions, large or small – all of which tends to play out in a performance-like atmosphere. On one night, a wannabe life coach offers “speed life-coaching” with eight-minute gratis sessions, while an amateur baker passes out complimentary homemade cupcakes. Another member gives haircuts in a barbershop chair. Dance performances, poetry readings, live music, in-person painting – you name it – are all welcome at McLeod. Performing is by no means mandatory, as both members and guests are invited to sit back with a cocktail, clap in encouragement, or just gawk in admiration.
For the up-for-anything McLeods, it’s all about stepping outside of the comfort zone. This is a practice they don’t just preach. Buster cofounded the popular 43 Things website (43things.com), a kind of interactive self-help site for urbanites, which encourages readers to undertake 43 resolutions – from “get over my ex” to “practice more cello” – and share the results. There’s the name change thing. And late last year, Lele even married a man she had known for barely 12 hours, “just to see what it was like.”
“From the beginning, we’ve invited people to do what they want to do,” Lele explains. “We want to show people their potential and get them excited about living. Just for the fun of it.”
INFO
McLeod Residence (gallery 10-6 Tues-Sat, free; lounge 6pm-midnight Thurs-Sat, by membership only; 2209 2nd Ave.; mcleodresidence.com or 206/441-3314). At press time, the McLeods were in the process of opening to the public seven nightsw a week, but they’ll still offer membership.