Opening the Gate to Luxury

Somewhere on one of the Gate’s sponge-painted, sandstone-color walls should be chiseled the inscription, If we build it, they will come.

This is a club built on faith. Faith that a latent market for luxury nightclubs exists in Los Angeles.

The newly opened Gate is waiting for Sylvester Stallone’s bodyguard entourage to muscle past the doorman. For Eddie Murphy to perform one of his patented 12-man reconnaissance tours across the dance floor.

Should Beverly Hills adjacent become the home away from home for high-rolling international arms traders, the Gate’s got the champagne chilled.

This is a club made for the arrival of stars and money. It even has a “limo drop” out back where chauffeurs can discreetly wheel into a paparazzi- proof, cyclone-fenced area and disgorge celebrity occupants. For Prince, Madonna, William Shatner--any celeb who might huddle in a limo yearning for anonymity--the Gate waits, ready to swing open.

What greets the well-to-do reveler is a truly fine-looking establishment. There’s certainly nothing like it on the current club scene. When a number of L.A. club owners were asked about the Gate, the almost universal response was, “I don’t know who these guys are, but the place looks great.”

The Gate’s three co-partners, Edward Baquero, Albert Gersten and Camille Bennett, took the building that housed La Cage aux Folles for what seemed like centuries and completely gutted it.

The revitalized 10,000 square feet of space now has the feel of a English club--as though Winston Churchill’s London hangout had been forced to add a dance floor to keep up with the times.

The carpets are a rich green; the ceilings have faux wood beams; gas fireplaces blaze; Oriental throw rugs add warmth, and the alcoves are lined with books. All the seating is done in a living room style with overstuffed chairs and sofas. It’s an atmosphere that operating partner Baquero calls “conducive to spending money.”

Admission is only $10 and $15, but as a wise man once said about taking children to the circus, “It’s not what it costs you to get in. It’s what it costs you to get out.”

At the circus this involves buying children balloons and cotton candy. At the Gate, it involves men who have been American Express members since the late ‘60s buying Perrier Jouet champagne, poached oysters and Beluga caviar for women who were born about the time they got their first platinum cards.

In one section of the club, a roped-off area called the Gallery, magnums of Dom Perignon go for $310. And the management has placed a champagne bucket next to every seating area. Conducive, indeed.

Though Los Angeles has been a graveyard for operators who thought New York- or European-style clubs would work here, the Gate has a number of advantages.

The first is Baquero. At 28, he’s a graduate of both Harvard University and the Miami Stringfellows club. He seems to have the ins and outs of the high-end customer-service industry typed into his genetic code. If the Gate closes, he could go on to managing Buckingham Palace. For this club, he produced a 109-page service manual each employee has to study. This is one place where the staff knows on which side of the plate the fork goes.

The other advantage is the Gate makes no pretense of being a restaurant. It serves appetizers--a “grazing menu”--and hopes to feed off the patrons of nearby chic eateries like the Monkey Bar and Tryst. It’s a dine-there, dance-here proposition.

Now that it’s open, all that’s left is the answer to the question, if we build it, will they come? Right now, where else do they have to go?

Name: The Gate

Location: 643 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. For reservations, (310) 859-5568. Open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday from 9:30 p.m. on. The bar closes at 2 a.m. The club closes when the patrons give up.

Cost: Entry is $10 Wednesday and Friday; $15 on Saturday. Beers are $4, drinks are $6. Appetizers average $12. Champagne can go as high as $325 a bottle.

Door Policy: “Evening attire.” Torn jeans are frowned upon--unless you’re rich and famous enough to get away with it. Wearing a tuxedo wouldn’t hurt. Neither would arriving in a limo.