Back for Another Round

At 33, Angus Beavers is a little ahead of his time. He says he’s already had his midlife crisis. Dropping out of a successful run in the nightclub business in New York a few years ago, he ran off to build a house on a sparsely populated island in the Caribbean.

But now he’s back in the states--and L.A.’s got him.

He started his club career right out of college and accumulated such credits as New York’s Surf Club, Zulu Lounge and Kangaroo Club & Restaurant.

“I was sort of burnt out,” he says. “So I sort of had my midlife crisis at about 29.”

After finishing the house, he went back to New York to find “all my friends were living in Greenwich and Far Hills with two kids. They had all moved elsewhere. They had changed. I was just flabbergasted. I did not feel connected.

“And New York is so stolid, so set in its ways,” he adds. “That’s what made me want to come out here.”

Beavers moved west, planning to work for a film producer. That never panned out.

Instead, he hooked up with club impresario Gary Pryor and former investment banker Philip Cummins.

“So I’m back where I began,” he says.

He hasn’t given up his dream of being a producer, but in the meantime, there’s still enough to the club life to keep him interested.

“Every city, every neighborhood has a different nuance. I love watching people, I love trying to work out the ‘disco dynamics’. . . . And I like living in L.A. It’s sort of tawdry--the Strip, the image of the gangs and that sort of thing.

“But I like tawdry. I came up with the name Renaissance, for the sense of hope and future. I’m hoping we’re at the bottom of the J-curve on economic improvement. So Renaissance is sort of a vote for rebirth.”