As communities around Los Angeles grapple with a surge of house parties in recent months, authorities have begun leveling a finger at a distinctly modern culprit: “collab houses,” groups of young social media influencers who have banded together within L.A.’s tony mansions to create online content and live lavish, photogenic lifestyles. Following numerous complaints from neighbors, the City of Beverly Hills has opened an investigation into the local collab house known as Clubhouse Beverly Hills.
“The City is aware of the violations and is working to achieve permanent compliance with the owners of the property,” Beverly Hills spokesperson Keith Sterling told the Courier.
The manager for Clubhouse Beverly Hills did not return a request for comment.
Clubhouse Beverly Hills formed in March after its founder, TikTok influencer Daisy Keech, left another popular Los Angeles collab house, Hype House. The TikTok account for the house boasts 1.3 million followers, with hundreds of thousands of followers on other social media sites.
Soon after Keech and the other residents of Clubhouse moved in, neighbors say the house began hosting regular, weekly parties.
One neighbor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described a recent party that she estimated had over 100 guests.
“They blocked both sides of the streets with cars, they were blocking some of my neighbor’s driveways,” she told the Courier. “And when you wake up in the morning, you’ve got condom wrappers, you’ve got tequila bottles, you’ve got random socks and random dish towels.”
The neighbor shared photos and videos with the Courier confirming details of her account.
Collab houses are not necessarily a new phenomenon, said New York Times technology and social media reporter Taylor Lorenz.
“We’ve had collab houses since forever,” she told the Courier. “Creative people have always been living together in houses.”
But what Los Angeles has experienced in the last few months alone represents a second iteration of modern, social media-oriented collab houses. Emerging content creators who grew up on the first generation of YouTube stars, watching personalities such as Jake and Logan Paul flaunt their lavish, L.A. mansion lifestyle, now seek to recreate that version of success.
Unfortunately for neighbors, this dream often includes frequent, large gatherings, which both serve to cement content creators’ image as successful, while also generating new content. In the best of times, this is arguably a violation of nuisance or disturbing the peace laws. In the worst of times (i.e. now) it’s a threat to public health.
Even since California Governor Gavin Newsom shut down businesses across the state to stem the spread of COVID-19, influencers have continued to form new collab houses.
In July, former-Clubhouse Beverly Hills member Isaak Presley unveiled a splinter house called Clubhouse For The Boys. Early in August, a group of YouTube stars known as Team RAR moved into an opulent 10 bedroom, 15,000 square-foot Holmby Hills mansion formerly owned by Frank Sinatra. On Aug. 11, “beauty influencers” Cole Carrigan and La Demi launched Glam House Beverly Hills, a collab house revolving around the expansive online world of makeup, hairdressing, and beauty.
The City of Los Angeles followed through on threats recently when it shut down power to the rented Hollywood Hills home of TikTok stars Bryce Hall, Noah Beck, and Blake Gray on Aug. 19. The action followed Hall’s rollicking 21st birthday party on Aug. 14, which ended with the arrival of the Los Angeles Police Department. While that party took place in another rental home in Encino, Hall has hosted multiple parties at the Hollywood Hills property as well.
“Parties like these can quickly and easily spread the virus and put our communities at risk,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti wrote in a tweet announcing the move.
“These houses are not going to stop until somebody draws a line for them,” Lorenz said, citing a brunch Clubhouse Beverly Hills hosted at the outset of the pandemic. “They just truly do not care.”
