Retreat on the Gathering Spot is 60,000 sq. toes of subtle Black brilliance.
When you open the doorways, you’ll discover inside a rooftop pool, a swanky restaurant and elevated workspaces with breathtaking views of the town. As you stroll by way of and see the rooftop daylight flood the rooms, Charly Palmer artwork items line the partitions, and books from among the most prolific Black authors of yesterday and immediately, you’ll rapidly understand that that is rather more than a spot. It’s a sense–and it seems like a sanctuary.
Retreat is what occurs when Black ambition says, “We would like all of it—and we’re not asking for permission.”
That’s the power Ryan Wilson brings as he walks me by way of the most recent extension of The Gathering Spot. “There’s a distinction between being tolerated someplace and being celebrated someplace,” he tells me. “And my purpose right here is to ensure people really feel celebrated on this area.”
He’s not speaking about some members-only membership that trades in exclusivity and velvet ropes. That is about belonging—about constructing a spot the place Black excellence, luxurious and enterprise lastly stay collectively in the identical room. The place your favourite artist and your favourite congresswoman could be having dinner on the subsequent desk. The place relaxation is as sacred as hustle.
The imaginative and prescient? It’s larger than a enterprise. “We deserve luxurious. We deserve the very best of what’s accessible on the market, interval,” he says, and for as soon as, it doesn’t really feel like a tagline—it seems like a promise.
That is Retreat.
You don’t construct one thing like this alone, and Wilson by no means pretends in any other case. Even when TK Petersen, his co-founder and school roommate, isn’t bodily current, you are feeling him in each nook of this place. Petersen is the numbers man—the finance mind who took Wilson’s large thought and turned it right into a enterprise mannequin that traders may imagine in.
The partnership began at Georgetown College. Wilson remembers writing for the primary time about The Gathering Spot, “I despatched that paragraph to TK and mentioned, ‘hey, you’re my enterprise pal and you’ve got a finance diploma. Are you able to assist me construct a mannequin round this concept?’” That was summer season 2013, in the course of the Trayvon Martin trial. Wilson was in legislation college when he obtained an e mail from mates asking, “What are we going to do?” He knew that one of many solutions was that we would have liked an area to collect, to have the exhausting conversations and tender landings.
Petersen got here by way of for his pal and mentioned sure. He at all times does. And when Wilson packed up his condominium after commencement, Petersen did the identical, transferring to Atlanta to begin what would develop into The Gathering Spot. “I’ve had one job,” Wilson says. “I’ve been doing The Gathering Spot for the reason that second I graduated from legislation college.” And Petersen? He’s been there the entire approach, the sort of co-founder you won’t see in each interview however whose fingerprints are on each verify signed, each deal brokered, each danger survived.
Even now, as Wilson provides me a tour, he’s checking in with the group, calling out a member’s ebook on the shelf, ensuring Petersen is looped in on a textual content in regards to the subsequent large occasion. “It’s a we factor, not a me factor, and that’s the muse this place was constructed on,” he proudly and loudly proclaims.
You may’t discuss Retreat—or The Gathering Spot—with out speaking about Atlanta. Ryan’s blunt about it: “I’m biased, however respectfully, Atlanta is an important metropolis within the nation proper now.” This metropolis isn’t simply house base, it’s the blueprint. “Most cities have a theme. New York is finance. LA is Hollywood. DC is authorities, politics. Atlanta is all of this stuff on the similar time. We now have actually large corporations that everybody is aware of. We now have a tremendous small enterprise neighborhood. The factor that we export greater than anything is our tradition. Our tradition goes the world over.”
That’s the ability of constructing right here, now, with the world watching. Retreat isn’t tucked away, hiding in a non-inviting gated neighborhood. It’s planted proper in the course of all the things—the place politics, artwork, tech, training, and Black tradition all collide, after which break bread collectively.
Wison isn’t shy in regards to the stakes. “We’re not a standard membership membership. We open our doorways frequently to the neighborhood and are very diligent about speaking about community-based points as a result of that’s who we’re as individuals.”
And in each dinner, each occasion, each connection solid right here, there’s an echo of Petersen’s pragmatism and Wilson’s drive—a partnership that began over late-night emails and nonetheless runs on group texts and shared imaginative and prescient.
Step inside, and you recognize this isn’t simply one other “see-and-be-seen” area.
Wilson, who’s made an entire profession out of bringing individuals collectively, is right here to information me, but it surely’s not nearly him. “Our complete factor is at all times attempting to attach people,” he says, “individuals who ordinarily wouldn’t have met.” That’s been the Gathering Spot ethos from the start, and Retreat takes it up a notch.
He factors out the artwork on the partitions—Charly Palmer originals, every on the market to flow into Black artwork into Black houses—and he talks up the menu, helmed by Chef Sosa (most lately of the 4 Seasons), who blends Southern roots with worldwide taste.
Flooring-to-ceiling home windows body panoramic views of Atlanta, from Midtown to Buckhead. Because the solar units, you’re reminded why Atlanta’s at all times been Black Hollywood, even when no one referred to as it that.
However it’s the vibe, not simply the view, that makes this place really feel totally different. There’s nothing stiff or unique about the best way individuals collect right here. “We’re celebrating the artists who actually rejoice us,” Ryan explains, stating that each artwork piece may be taken house, supporting the very creatives the area is constructed to honor. Preview nights for members, Juneteenth dinners, ebook launches, and probability conferences—all of it folds right into a tradition the place you’re as more likely to bump right into a CEO as you’re a first-time entrepreneur, a congresswoman, or an up-and-coming artist. “It’s about intentional neighborhood, not simply entry,” Ryan says.
He walks me into an area that feels extra like somebody’s front room than a lounge, a bookshelf curated by members (Will Packer’s ebook, Nick Stone’s, Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon’s and extra—if you recognize, you recognize). Non-public eating rooms for actual connection. Chef’s tables for intimate, memorable moments. Each element is about up for belonging. It’s the sort of area the place brilliance is the default, and conversations transfer with a way of risk.
That sense of belonging isn’t simply an summary preferrred—it’s lived. Dr. Lakeysha “Dr. Key” Hallmon, entrepreneur, Retreat member, writer of No One Is Self-Made: Construct Your Village to Flourish In Enterprise and Life, and founding father of The Village Market—a nationally acknowledged platform supporting and accelerating Black-owned companies—is aware of a factor or two about constructing neighborhood.
As she places it: “Retreat embodies what makes Atlanta the most effective cities on the earth, which is our capacity to see one another. The ambiance right here isn’t nearly networking; it’s about creating an area the place genuine connections can flourish and the place individuals are actually witnessed of their fullness.”
Dr. Key’s personal Juneteenth dinner at Retreat, co-hosted with Ryan, proved the purpose: “That is how actions start—not in boardrooms or convention halls, however round tables the place we will see one another totally, share our tales authentically, and acknowledge that our particular person journeys are half of a bigger collective narrative of resilience and dedication.”
For her, Retreat in a single phrase is “transformative”—and he or she’d know. Her personal work, like this membership’s, facilities on financial empowerment and intentional, ecosystem-level influence.
Each program, each little bit of this place is a group effort. “We now have a very good group,” Ryan makes very clear. “I had the unique sort of duty of the primary seed, and I needed to water it and maintain watering it, proper? However now there’s lots of people who’re watering that plant. And I admire them.”
Town is a blueprint, sure—however what’s taking place at Retreat is about exporting that Atlanta power in all places. “We now have members in eight cities,” Ryan tells me, “three bodily areas—two in Atlanta, one in D.C., one in LA. Houston is on the roadmap.” Occasions pop up throughout the nation, constructing neighborhood earlier than there’s even a constructing.
What makes it work? It’s not a emblem touchdown in a metropolis and calling it a motion. “It’s becoming a member of communities, not simply displaying up in them,” Ryan explains. That’s why whenever you’re at Retreat, it by no means seems like outsiders parachuted in. The tradition is seeded and grown, not imposed.
For each shiny nook, there’s a narrative. Ryan shares how, even in pre-opening, the area hosted everybody from Maryland Governor Wes Moore to Morehouse college students, from native founders to nationwide manufacturers. “Even in a pre-opening setting, there are simply only a few locations that may say they’ve hosted your favourite politician, your favourite artist, and your favourite model—multi function week.” That’s by design.
It’s not misplaced on anybody that in a metropolis constructed on hustle, that is additionally a sanctuary for relaxation. The pool, the quiet corners, the chef’s desk, the sense that you just belong right here simply as you’re—it’s all deliberate. “I would like individuals to really feel like that is an extension of their house,” Ryan says. “A spot of relaxation, privateness, and connection. I’m an introvert by nature, so I believe so much about how individuals like me must expertise area. And I would like our neighborhood to get pleasure from this, to calm down and simply… be.”
And in the end, that is what it appears to be like like when Black tradition will get to have all of it.
Retreat isn’t the top of a journey—it’s simply one other starting. The work isn’t completed, Ryan insists, and he gained’t fake in any other case. “I nonetheless really feel like we’re within the first quarter of this factor. There’s a variety of gathering nonetheless left to do.” However in case you ask anybody who walks by way of these doorways—artists, politicians, enterprise leaders, or the subsequent technology simply developing—they’ll inform you that what’s taking place right here isn’t simply new for Atlanta, it’s new for in all places.
As a result of Black ambition, Black belonging, and Black luxurious aren’t mutually unique—they’re constructing blocks for the longer term. And at Retreat, you are feeling that future is now.