Member Spotlight: Margaret Chen

If you have attended a Sunday family lunch in the past decade, you have almost certainly seen Margaret Chen — usually at the long table by the garden windows, usually surrounded by three generations of her family, and usually mid-story. A member since 2015, Margaret is an award-winning architect, a trustee of the city's Museum of Modern Design, and one of the Club's most quietly influential voices. We sat down with her in the library on a bright May afternoon.

A Second Home

"The Club has become a second home for my family," she says, echoing words she once offered for our membership brochure — words she stands by. "When we joined, I thought of it as a place for dinners and the occasional event. What I didn't anticipate was the texture of it. My daughter learned to swim here. My father plays bridge here every Thursday. That kind of continuity is rare in a city that reinvents itself every five years."

As an architect, Margaret confesses a professional appreciation for the clubhouse itself. "The 1895 building is a masterclass in proportion. I bring young associates from my practice here just to walk the main stair. You cannot teach that in a rendering."

A Life in Design

Margaret's firm, Chen Atelier, is behind several of the city's most admired adaptive-reuse projects, including the transformation of the old Customs House into a public library. Her guiding principle — "honor the bones, renew the purpose" — will sound familiar to anyone who has followed the Club's own renovation philosophy. It is no coincidence: she served as an advisor on the Wellness Wing project, lending her eye to everything from sightlines to stone.

"The brief I gave the committee was simple," she recalls. "A member should walk into the new wing and feel it has always been there. Judging by how quickly the treatment rooms book out, I think we came close."

Advice for New Members

Asked what she would tell someone joining the Club today, Margaret does not hesitate. "Say yes for the first year. Yes to the wine dinners, yes to the lecture you think isn't for you, yes to the tennis mixer even if your backhand is a rumor. Every close friendship I have made here began with an event I almost skipped."

And her favorite corner of the Club, after eleven years? She smiles. "The library at five o'clock in winter, when the lamps come on and someone has lit the fire. If you know, you know."