The Bowery Hotel team is building a neighborhood in Florida
Plus the next phase of Soho House's comeback, Ty Haney's countersuit, and why influencers should unionize
Hi, and welcome to Busibody. I’m writing this at the public library because it’s quiet and it’s free and I like the tree in the lobby. Yesterday I went by Max & Helen’s; they’re hosting a last-minute toy drive for Alexandria House through Monday, incentivized by Nancy Silverton’s chocolate chip cookies.
This is not a g*ft gu*de, but if you’re somehow still empty-handed, consider taking wishlist cues from end-of-year consumer spending reports. What men really want, per Zocdoc, is botox (visits were up 45% this year) and therapy (up 46%)—though it’s worth noting that 82% of appointments scheduled for men were actually scheduled by women, so maybe it’s fairer to say that what women want for men is botox and therapy. What women want for themselves is to defeat menopause, Chanel shoulder bags (per The RealReal), and high-end skincare devices (per ShopMy via Puck’s Line Sheet).
Here are some recent developments in the plot of our lives that is capitalism:
The team behind the Bowery, the Ludlow, etc. is building a neighborhood in Florida.
BD Hotels are undertaking their first new-construction project outside of New York, a 201-room hotel in West Palm Beach’s nascent Nora District…a district of their own making. “What we’re actually building is a neighborhood,” said co-founder Richard Born, and along with NDT Development, Place Projects, and Wheelock Street Capital, the hoteliers are transforming 40-acres into a pedestrian-friendly shopping and entertainment block. Tenants have begun to move in; eventually there will be a Le Labo, Warby Parker, hair salons, fitness studios, office spaces, and a 350-unit apartment complex. The entire project is estimated to cost more than a billion dollars. BD Hotels’ contribution, The Nora Hotel, will house a Pastis outpost on the ground floor, and it’s slated to open in August 2026.
Ty Haney is countersuing her investors.
Investors in Ty Haney’s energy drink startup, Joggy, sued her in October for alleged securities fraud, claiming she promised them—first verbally, then in a non-binding term sheet—a certain amount of equity. Sina Simantob of investment firm Sinco, Inc. says he effectively ran the startup in the first half of this year, but when he pushed for a binding contract, Haney reduced his stake from 20% to 3%. Hours after Puck broke the news, Haney cheekily posted “Sue me” on X.
Now Haney has filed a countersuit, claiming Sinco cost Joggy an 850-store deal with Target, resulting in a $1 million loss in revenue per year. Simantob allegedly appointed his “personal friend with no consumer packaged goods experience” as COO, leading to defective barcoding and the collapse of the Target deal. “On fundraising,” the filing reads, “Sinco raised only $325,000 from outside investors, contributed $100,000 itself, and extended (then partially recalled) loans—nowhere near its $3 million promise.
“The reality is,” it continues, “there was no binding contract; Sinco did not deliver the performance it promised; and Sinco’s own conduct (operational missteps and shifting terms) caused the harm Sinco now attempts to lay at Joggy and Haney’s feet.”
Hernan Diaz ARCs are coming soon to your social feeds.
I learned from a friend in publishing that Hernan Diaz—author of Pulitzer Prize-winning Trust, a novel perhaps best known in pop culture for its pivotal role in Dua Lipa and Callum Turner’s meet-cute—started line edits for his next book earlier this month. It’s called Ply, it takes place 400 years in the future, in a version of our world where money no longer exists, and it has something to do with particle physics. The novel will be published by Riverhead in 2026.
The next phase of Soho House’s comeback is global expansion.
Including, a city official confirmed, a 7-acre property in Palm Springs, despite abandoning plans to build there in 2023 due to “insurmountable bureaucracy.” Other imminent openings include Sonoma, Toyko, Los Cabos, and New York (Flatiron and upstate farmhouse). They’re throwing a festival(!) in Manhattan on October 3, 2026, various existing Houses will be fully renovated, and they’ve revealed planned expansions in Milan, Madrid, Lisbon, Tuscany, Sydney, Melbourne, Goa, and Delhi. This seems like a lot for a brand that trades in exclusivity!
In August, following increasingly bearish takes from investors and clientele, Soho House announced it would be privately-owned again following a $2.7 billion deal with MCR Hotels, America’s third largest hotel owner-operator, and in October it was revealed the membership lists had been trimmed.
OVERHEARD
Martha Stewart to Flamingo Estate’s Richard Christiansen re: what happened to Kmart:
Kmart was the biggest retailer in America, but they had absolutely stupid people running it. It grew in spite of itself because people needed and wanted all that stuff. And then they started to expand; they bought a bookseller, then they bought a hardware store, and then, you know, they got way too big for the brains that were running it. And they lost inventory control.
Brenda Weischer re: why influencers should unionize:
I always scream from the rooftops that all influencers should unionise because you will be sitting at a brand dinner for free and the person next to you is getting a 10k attendance fee, a 10k voucher, a driver for the night, hair and makeup, and will leave before dessert is there.
Celebrity astrologist Karen Thorne re: reading Bill Clinton’s chart in the 90s:
I saw something that I thought I had to tell the Secret Service.