Nurturing a Culture

The Miracle Mile will be simmering with Latin rhythms this weekend with the opening of the new Latin music and dance club the Conga Room. And, although the celebrations at the colorful new room aren’t specifically related to the arrival of Mardi Gras, expect them to have every bit as much singing, dancing and all-around revelry as the most passionate Carnival festival.

The Conga Room has been created in an unlikely location--a former Jack LaLanne health spa--but there are no surviving vestiges of the original tenant. Partners Brad Gluckstein and Martin Fleischmann gutted the 12,000-square-foot facility and brought in designer Ron Myers (who did Atlas Bar & Grill) to create a setting that Fleischmann describes as “something like Havana in the ‘50s.”

Patrons will enter via a long staircase into a lounge area whose walls are decorated with 8-foot-high conga drum panels. The tables in the lounge are conga drum replicas, and the percussion theme is extended throughout the facility. The 4,000-square-foot ballroom is adorned with atmospheric bamboo and wrought iron and fronted by a stage large enough to hold a big Latin orchestra.

“We wanted it to be a place where people would feel transported by the setting,” says Fleischmann, “a combination of the old with the new, not hitting people over the head with a contemporary sledgehammer, but at the same time not just falling back on the old Havana nightclub cliches.”

In addition to the ballroom and lounge, the Conga Room has three bars, a VIP cigar room and a separate traditional Latin dining room comedor. Decorations are bright, enlivened by tropical colors and sunbeam motifs that stream across the floors, connecting one area to another.

Creating the Conga Room has not been an overnight proposition, however. Though neither man is Latino, Fleischmann, 32, has had considerable experience with Latin music, producing numerous shows at venues around town and the Hollywood Salsa and Latin Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. And Gluckstein, a real estate developer, has been primarily involved with Latin music via his great affection for salsa dancing.

Gluckstein’s original thought, in fact, was to convert the LaLanne facility into a dance studio.

“But by the time we got together and started talking about it, it had become a celebrity-laden hot nightspot,” Fleischmann says with a laugh.

And the Conga Room does, indeed, have an impressive lineup of celebrity investors, among them actors Jimmy Smits and Jennifer Lopez, baseball star Bobby Bonilla, comedian Paul Rodriguez and singer Tito Nieves. Rodriguez and Nieves will open the show Friday night for the legendary Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz.

“We should have entitled it, ‘Crossover Dream,’ ” says Smits. “Because it’s not just a Latin place, it’s for everybody--something that’s upscale, but still has the flavor of the culture, and can be a showcase for Latin artists. And music, to me, is the thing that really is the ultimate in terms of having crossover potential, because everybody can hook into it.”

Despite the room’s Latin ambience, the celebrity Latin investors didn’t simply show up on the club’s doorstep.

“We got to Jennifer Lopez through a guy who was painting my dad’s house,” says Fleischmann. “Jimmy Smits we got when Brad kept buttonholing him at various functions, and it helped that Jimmy’s makeup person is a mutual friend.”

The result of the wheeling, dealing, networking and sheer imagining is a club that some like to describe as a “Latin House of Blues.” But Gluckstein and Fleischmann also want the facility to be a center for cultural and educational activities during the hours it is not in use as a nightclub.

“This music needs nurturing in this city,” Gluckstein says. “And we want to use the room as a place to introduce people to the music and the dance, a place to give them the opportunity to experience Latin culture in all its richness.”

With the success of Merv Griffin’s new Coconut Club, the emerging Latino market and the tendency of aging boomers to seek nightclub-style dance venues, the Conga Room would seem to be poised for success. Upcoming bookings include Jose Feliciano and a long line of local dance and salsa bands.

“I think we’re on the right track,” Fleischmann says, “because we have this gut feeling that this is the right time and the right place. But the bottom line, the real motivation for both of us, was really very simple: to give Latin music an opportunity to be heard, experienced and enjoyed by everybody.”

Smits agrees. “I’ll definitely be around a lot,” he says. “Maybe dancing with Jennifer. But definitely with a clave in my hands, digging the music.”

BE THERE

The Conga Room, 5364 Wilshire, Blvd. on the Miracle Mile. (213) 938-1696. Celia Cruz, Friday (sold out) and Saturday, 8:30 p.m. $42.50 general admission, $100 VIP (admission and guaranteed seating). On the day of performance only, entry tickets will be available for $25, which will permit access to the venue but not the performance area. Performances, however, can be heard and seen on video screens. On Feb. 26, salsa singer Tito Nieves. $25 general, $75 VIP, $15 entry tickets (on the day of performance only).