In December of 2022, two brothers from Salt Lake, George Cardon-Bystry and Charlie Cardon, decided to open Edison House, a social club for a distinctly anti-social era. The two started with a bare lot and constructed their design-forward space from the ground up to be a new kind of place, casual and inviting. Somewhere you could work remotely, have lunch, meet friends for drinks, take in a lecture and then attend a high-class party.
It’s three years later, so we checked back in with the brothers to see how it’s going, what’s worked and what hasn’t, and what lessons they’ve taken to heart.
How do you help people make real-life connections?
Charlie: The process of creating connections and friends requires buy-in and investment, no matter how much scaffolding you put around it. The way we think about connection and friendship is that it’s our job to create as many fertile opportunities as possible for connections—we build that scaffolding, but there’s still always that next level of investment. We had some members who came to us and said, “I didn’t meet anybody.” We’d ask them, “Did you go to the events? Did you go to the parties? Did you go up and say ‘Hi’ to people?” They didn’t. That next step is scary for people. But we had a member tell us last year, “I made more friends in the last year at Edison House than I have in the last 10 years in Salt Lake.”
It’s hard to make real-life friendships. What about people who just look at their phones?…