To step inside a Remedy Place club is to be soothed. With calming outposts on both sides of the US — the original, in West Hollywood, opened in 2019, with the second landing in Manhattan’s Flatiron District last year — these holistic healing centres have revolutionised the wellness industry. Their dark woods, soft leathers and heavy swag curtains place the spaces far away from the impersonal, clinical institutions we’ve come to associate with modern medicine. But that was the intention of founder Dr. Jonathan Leary.
Specialising in non-invasive approaches to surgery prevention and chronic pain rehabilitation, Leary’s aim was to design physical spaces that would both enhance people’s wellbeing and their social lives. And, from ice baths to infrared saunas, vitamin drips to hyperbaric oxygen chambers, the chiropractor has succeeded in ‘socialising’ every aspect of his members’ self-correcting, curative journeys. Here, he reveals why the right surroundings are so critical to this success, and how to replicate this relaxing atmosphere at home.
Remedy Place club
What does the word ‘wellness’ mean to you?
It’s a word that has been thrown around and is used as a blanket term for everything nowadays. But, to me, wellness is anything that positively influences our internal physiologies, and therefore makes us shine brighter. Everything starts from within and, the more we are connected with ourselves, the more that will ripple into every single aspect of our lives.
And how does art and design link to wellness?
They make up our environments, and environment plays a major role in our health. At Remedy Place, when we say that we are ‘designed to heal’, we mean that literally. If you walk into a hospital or clinical setting and have a negative physiological response — where your body tenses up and your heart rate elevates — then that environment is working against you. So I have studied human psychology and learned how to manipulate every single aspect and detail of design to ensure you will have a positive physiological response.
What features elicit this response?
Your senses are extremely powerful, so we have found a way to please them all. And there is a reason behind everything in Remedy Place. Whether it be the underlying sound frequency of our lounge music, the materials used to help block EMF [electric and magnetic fields], the smells we use to clean the air that you are breathing or the symmetrical, balanced visuals to put your mind at ease, we have thought of everything.
What does the Remedy Place experience look like?
Our promise is that you will leave feeling better than when you walk in, every time you come to the club. And those improvements can be drastic. Because, depending on what you’re coming in for — and I’d say most people are struggling with mental health, pain, gastrointestinal problems and fatigue — we have a remedy for it. And this goes well beyond just offsetting the normal stressors on your body, or just ‘feeling better’. With our functional medicine testing and programming, we can get to the root cause of any ailment our guests have been having trouble with. Then we give them a holistic plan to fix it and educate them about what they need to know about their body.
What is the most popular treatment you offer?
Every single experience will drastically enhance performance, and I have been using these alternative medicine practices — including all of our modern technology, or ‘Tech-Remedy’ — on my athletes for over seven years. But if I had to single out some treatments that I think give my athletes, or any guest, the best enhanced performance, those would be ice baths, hyperbaric chambers, chiropractic and NAD intravenous therapy. It is amazing how much more efficient the body is when you give it exactly what it needs.
The facility’s soothing tones are conducive to relaxation
Why has your background in chiropractic care proved so important?
My practice in sports medicine really set us up on a healthy foundation. Listening to my patients for seven years — hearing what they liked; what they didn’t like; what worked; what didn’t work; what they were willing to do; what they weren’t willing to do — and just truly understanding their stressors gave me so many data points to find solutions for.
How are the new facilities and treatments chosen?
Everything is rooted in science and my own clinical evidence. We will never put something in Remedy Place that isn’t clinically proven. We will always enhance the environment and experience, while continuing to gather more data. And that’s the coolest thing about scaling — we learn from each of our guests and expand our knowledge with each new club opening.
At home, how can we create an environment for healing?
Environment plays a major role in the healing process, so anything that can shift your body into a more comfortable, relaxed state will help. Try to be as minimalist as possible by removing clutter. Try to have balance wherever possible. Stick to warm earth tones, natural light and warm lighting in the evening. Music is the oldest form of healing, so build a playlist that has the right sound frequencies. Find ways to enhance your space with organic, natural essential oils — don’t use chemical or synthetic-based compounds, or toxic candles. And lastly, just try to create an inviting place for you to enjoy with others.
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