“Inclusively exclusive,” is the new moniker Donahue Peebles III, executive vice president of The Peebles Corporation, uses to describe The Bath Club, a private beachfront social club in Miami with a storied and segregated past. 

Founded in 1926, it became a retreat for elites like Herbert Hoover and the Vanderbilt’s. However, reflective of the era’s segregated policies, Black and Jewish people were barred from membership – even from using front entrances for work and deliveries.

“At that time, the world was a radically different place,” Peebles explains.” When my family ended up desegregating the club in the late 1990s it was a powerful moment, and the impact of that moment was compounded when we acquired the club and became the sole owner.” 

Now restored to its original grandeur, with its discriminatory past left behind, The Bath Club is the largest private beach and one of the most distinguished venues in Miami. It’s home to events for Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Art Basel and more. 

Spanning five and half acres of oceanfront space, the club also features luxurious amenities including restaurants and curated spaces for cultural planning.  “It’s a bastion of culture and intellect, but it’s one that’s done without an eye to race or gender,” Peebles says. 

For the Peebles family, it is more than a business venture. It is simultaneously a symbol of cultural reclamation and redefinition.  “We feel like it’s really fitting that the family that first desegregated the club – now relaunched it in a way that speaks to the inclusivity that we hope American society mirrors,” the young executive vice president adds. 

Peebles graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in economics and has been immersed in real estate since childhood. He credits his father — renowned developer Donahue Peebles Jr – for laying the foundation. “Whether it was nature or nurture, I don’t know,” Peebles says. “But my father was always very intentional and deliberate about bringing me up in real estate.” 

While most kids were learning long division, he was already reading profit and loss statements and assessing property values. For him, the path was clear, “I’ve never really concerned myself with creating my own lane,” Peebles says. “But continuing to push the broader family mission forward.” 

That mission, rooted in equity and development includes The Bath Club, now for “intergenerational families that prioritize connection and sharing beautiful experiences,” Peebles notes.