THIS IS GHOST

WORDS Seth Travis IMAGES Aqib Mamoon

Just a few minutes from Manhattan in Williamsburg is a new kind of place for health and wellness for the creative, entrepreneurial and professional leaders of today. GHOST was conceived and created by founder and CEO, Aqib Mamoon and is also the location for our shoot with Luke Rockhold and Erika Hammond has seen in Issue one of Metropolis Sport.

The space is artfully blended with elements of fitness and leisure. The 6,000 square foot lounge was designed to defy expectations and go beyond convention. GHOST is an architectural playground with unique structures, luxurious finishes and lighting specially created for an immersive experience.

GHOST is a members only facilty designed to preserve the intimacy of every client's experience and privacy. Data is very important to the brand by bridging the gap between fitness and technology, by leveraging biometric and musculoskeletal information to develop a revolutionary machine learning platform. Through these proprietary algorithms, GHOST's mission is to deliver physiologically optimized programming and innovative training solutions for Mamoon's clients. We sat down with Aqib to discuss his new venture into health and wellness.

MS: Can you tell us where you were or how the idea for GHOST was sparked?

AM: GHOST has been many years in ideation, and its truly been a passion project and creative outlet for me. I spent the early days of my career in investment banking and advisory, working with some prominent companies in hospitality and fitness. Equally relevant— I was also a trainer and avid consumer of all things fitness. At the time we were in the midst of a massive wave towards new boutique group fitness concepts, which seemed to be where both consumers and capital flooded. More and more meetings were occurring in the fitness studio vs coffee bar, and SoulCycle just filed their S-1.

But having perhaps an unusual perspective on the industry for the time, my thoughts were elsewhere. I knew this categorical attention on mass-market models would eventually leave a serious gap in the luxury segment of the market. For me, the true value of fitness (outside of our health, of course) was its ability to foster organic social and professional relationships— in a way that even private social clubs could not. Predicting this value would surface in years to come, I decided to create an alternative product. One that solves for this highly discretionary consumer who craves exclusive experiences and has perhaps grown weary of the traditional gym.

MS: We live in a world where it is all about the product AND experience. What are the 3 things separate GHOST from all the other boutique gyms popping up all over metropolitan areas not just in the U.S. but globally?

AM: Perhaps most notable, GHOST is explicitly not a gym. Historically the market has been dominated by two models: the “big-box” gym and, more recently, “boutique” fitness studios (i.e. group fitness). We’ve created a third vertical, a marriage of health and hospitality which we call the Luxury Fitness Lounge.

GHOST is an immersive experience in a space designed to connect thought leaders of the world through health and wellness. Simply put, there’s no other company taking our approach— nationally or globally. So what sets us apart from boutique gyms is our willingness to go against the grain, to drive innovation through design and technology, and our vision of building culture around health.

MS: GHOST is a luxury fitness lounge. Beyond a member coming to get their workout in during lunch, Tell us more about what the lounge aspect looks like, feels like and sounds like on any given day or night?

AM: We describe GHOST as a beautifully-designed space to train, socialize, connect and create. In other words, we function not only as a training facility but also as a social club. While our primary use case is fitness, members also utilize the space to take a meeting, conduct business, or meet similarly inspiring individuals. This amounts to big changes from both a design and operational perspective. We’ve thrown out the old “gym” rulebook, and built a lounge that serves as a cultural hub. In addition to daytime operations, we have a strong curation of cultural programming after-hours— everything from live DJs to public speakers, discussion panels and, in a word, nightlife.

Courtesy GHOST

Courtesy GHOST