‘Mayor of Montrose’ on the grand return of his legendary LGBTQ+ club

One particular of Houston’s most legendary dance golf equipment will the moment all over again welcome revelers commencing this weekend. Montrose staple South Beach front will reopen its doors this Friday, June 15.

To start with opened in 2001 as the greatest bash spot for Houston’s LGBTQ+ local community, South Beach gives club goers with above 11,000 sq. toes of room to dance the night time absent.

Immediately after an about 15-yr run, proprietor Charles Armstrong closed the bar in 2018 for renovations that had been just about full in the spring of 2020, but the club remained closed for two a lot more many years owing to the international pandemic.

Performing with inside designer John Robinson of Houston-primarily based Robinson & Associates, Armstrong took inspiration from the modern interiors of the high-rise and mid-rise apartments that have sprung up close to Houston. The final result is that South Beach’s previously industrial inside has been presented a present-day renovation that attributes mahogany wooden partitions, Carrera marble bar tops, and black granite and oak wooden flooring.

In what’s undoubtedly the most eye-catching change, the bar’s large mirror ball has been changed by an 8-foot tall, 450-pound, quartz crystal chandelier that rotates more than the dance floor. Additionally, lighting designer Tim Hannum has installed a thorough established of upgrades with color-transforming LEDs that help set the temper.

Armstrong, dubbed by some “the Mayor of Montrose,” also owns JR’s Bar & Grill, touted in a push release as the city’s oldest consistently operating gay bar, under the banner of Charles Armstrong Investments, Inc. He earlier owned Montrose Mining Firm, which grew to become a spot of Arizona-dependent wine bar and restaurant Postino in 2019. He also owned Meteor, a present-day lounge that shut in 2016 the bar’s indicator is displayed on South Beach’s expansive, 1,500-sq.-foot patio.

CultureMap spoke to Armstrong about the improvements to the club and how it feels to be reopening South Seaside just after 4 many years absent. Solutions have been edited for duration and clarity.
CultureMap: Why decide you to renovate South Beach?
Charles Armstrong: A dance club, especially a GLBTQ+ club, has a selected daily life. Bars can operate permanently. Dance golf equipment have a finite everyday living. You are going to see a whole lot in the straight nightclub marketplace that bars have an even shorter lifespan exactly where they have to re-concept and start off over. In the homosexual dance club scene, that’s legitimate as effectively, but it’s a extended lifestyle. South Seashore experienced attained that interval.
CM: How do you describe the renovations over-all?
CA: Hunting at the mid-rises and significant-rises that have cropped up in city spaces all throughout the United States, one particular typical point I’ve viewed in this development is that they have a modern inside: the lobbies, the units them selves could have hardwood flooring, granite counter tops, finer appointments. The typical places have a vacation resort-fashion pool, modern day lighting, gorgeous stonework, etcetera.

I’m contacting it Restoration Components meets Montrose. It’s a mix of bringing hotter, richer strategies of residing into a nightclub ecosystem. That was the complete inspiration of updating. The initial inspiration was a masculine, industrial dance elaborate. So, transferring away from that to the ultimate household party.
CM: Explain to me about the chandelier. I have listened to it’s pretty a showpiece.
CA: I fell in adore with this substantial, spectacular, impressive chandelier. It is 8-toes tall. I contact it the ‘mother of all chandeliers.’ That’s our new centerpiece. It is completely spectacular.

My recent lighting and sound guy, Tim Hannum, he does some of the most well-known dance clubs. . . I asked him what could we do to mount the chandelier to the ceiling, can we make it rotate? He searched out to discover the appropriate organization to make the right system to where we can rotate the chandelier, and it is absolutely illuminated with LEDs. It is a outstanding centerpiece.
CM: How would you describe South Beach for another person who’s in no way been there before?
CA: The spirit of South Seashore is a celebration of cultural richness, cultural variety. In which Houston had usually been far more of a segregated metropolis in the ’80s and ’90s, the beauty of Miami South Beach is the cultural richness of all these cultures colliding.

I needed to carry that again and make South Beach a celebration of diversity, the place persons from all walks of life could be welcomed below one roof. Gay, straight, what ever, be sort of a single one more, be tolerant of just one one more, and be compassionate to just one a different, you will get together fine and have a excellent night time.
CM: You have been shut for 4 yrs. What are your anticipations for the reopening?
CA: I listened to a CNBC report with an job interview of the CEO of Bumble. She built the place that basic human requirements are for desire and connecting.

None of that has transformed. The wish to fulfill the true like of your everyday living. They’re out there.

Individuals really don’t at any time prevent the quest for love. Whether you’re gay, straight, male, female, whatever, that common desire to meet the suitable person, it can occur in a restaurant, it can happen in a nightclub, a church or synagogue.

You just have to get out there and be engaged. The terrific adore of my everyday living I met 42 several years in the past in a homosexual bar in Orlando, Florida. You just don’t know when the lights bolt is heading to strike you.