With Their Club the Battery, Michael Birch and Xochi Birch Alter a San Francisco Scene Xochi and Michael Birch, a tech start-up team, in the Battery, the private social club they founded in San Francisco. Drew Kelly for The New York Times The game was called "describe your superpower." Five men and women, who had met two hours earlier, lounged on shiny gold couches and boasted about their hidden talents. "I can take abstract ideas and synthesize them into something other people can relate to," said David Clay, a filmmaker, 47, who wore a natty blazer. To his left, Brian Trent, 42, an entrepreneur with Ankh Marketing, an event production company, offered: "I can read people really well." Then he added another arrow to his quiver. "I have my finger on the pulse," Mr. Trent said, tapping his wrist. Such was the scene at the Battery, a new members-only social club in San Francisco that seeks to bring a dash of British exclusivity and decorum to the land of billionaire geeks and schlubby bro-grammers. It was a Tuesday night in November and the members, well-heeled and well-funded, were celebrating the club's first art installation, featuring works by contemporary Bay Area artists. One fluorescent-lit sign, hung at the top of the glass staircase, read: "Hogwarts meets Victoria's Secret meets Guantánamo Bay meets Lilith Fair meets the DMV." The library in the club, where membership is $2,400 a year. In a gentrifying city, it has ushered in a new type of night life. The improbable mash-up could also describe the scene. While the noise level suggested a nightclub, the crowd did not. There was as much gray hair as blond, iron-coaxed curls; the occasional stiletto heel clacked alongside silent New Balance sneakers and practical flat boots. "A lot of the people here look like they should be in bed by 10 p.m.," Mr. Trent said. But if there is a place to see-and-be-seen in the web start-up capital at the moment, the Battery may be it, at least for those who update their LinkedIn profiles religiously and count "ideating" among their daily rituals. Once a marble-cutting factory in the city's Jackson Square neighborhood, the century-old building at 717 Battery Street now houses an assortment of wall-mounted animal heads, a wine cellar covered with Napa Valley corks, a 20-person hot tub, a conference room with reverse painted glass panels, and women in sheath dresses who check members in on iPads. It is a 58,000-square-foot, five-bar, five-story house of mirth. Part passion project, part social experiment, the Battery has ushered in a new kind of night life to San Francisco, a city whose tastemakers are more frequently found in communal co-working spaces than velvet-rope-guarded V.I.P. booths. Though members-only clubs are not new in this city, the Battery has provoked some ire. The Gawker-run blog Valleywag called it a "private clubhouse that apes so much that's lame and gauche about Manhattan." It has also been held up as a symbol of the rapidly gentrifying city, where a corporate bus to Google's Mountain View headquarters was blocked recently by protesters upset at how tech wealth is driving up housing prices and fundamentally changing the way people live. A blogger for The New Yorker neatly summed it up this way: the Battery's existence "reflects the bigger issue at hand: San Francisco itself is turning into a private, exclusive club." Opened last November, the club was founded by Michael Birch, 43, and his wife, Xochi, who turned 42 on Saturday. The couple earned their tech stripes with their previous start-up, the social networking site Bebo, which they sold in 2008 to AOL for $850 million. Mr. Birch bought it back last year for $1 million. They were inspired by the private clubs of London, where they met, and wanted to recreate that sense of propriety in their new hometown. "San Francisco is a small city, yet it seems somehow big and divided socially," Mr. Birch said. We thought a London-style private club would be an interesting way to break down some of those divides. The club is not exactly an exercise in democracy. To become a member, an applicant must be nominated by one of 1,200 existing members. The first 100 were handpicked by the Birches. Applicants are reviewed by a committee, details of which the Birches declined to discuss. But the couple did stress that the club strives for diversity, at least in terms of profession ("You can't just have tech people because those conversations get boring," Ms. Birch said) and gender (too many bros does not a party make). There is also an annual fee of $2,400, which Ken Fulk, the club's creative director, said "is about what you'd pay for a nice gym in the city." That's comparable to the fee at other private clubs like the Soho House in New York, though it should be noted that the Battery also charges an additional $70 a month to use the gym and spa. The Battery also offers "scholarships" for members whose fortunes are not tied to I.P.O."s. Once in, there are rules or "customs," as the Battery likes to call them. Members receive a book detailing protocols such as, "members should check their coats and egos at the door," and "talking business is welcome; pitching business is not." For its always-wired members, the toughest rule may be its ban on posting anything club-related on Instagram, Facebook and other social networks. Talking or texting on cellphones is also discouraged after 6 p.m. "We just want members to feel like they can come, relax, and not feel like they're going to end up posted on some social media thing," Mr. Birch said. Photography is also banned, though the Birches agreed to pose inside the club for this article. Arbiters of the city's night life have not exactly embraced the Battery. Some say it is the latest example of how San Francisco is increasingly geared for the rich. "Another lavish private club you can't afford," said the blog Sfist. Others have been underwhelmed by the crowd, saying that it is too network-y. To make its mark on the city's social scene, the Battery has hosted several high-profile parties in recent months, including for the San Francisco Film Society, the Financial Times and Moët Hennessy, and an opening-night fete that attracted about 1,500 guests. It remains to be seen if the Battery can sustain the buzz, especially among the city's younger, tech-minded scenesters, who may bristle at the club's old-fashioned rules and self-enforced air of exclusivity. At the November art party, as the circle of partygoers waxed poetic about their super powers, a silver-haired man strode into the room (which is hidden behind a bookcase) with two young, blond women. The two groups eyed each other suspiciously. "This is the secret card room," he said in a professorial tone, explaining to his guests that new entrants were supposed to mingle with those currently hanging out and perhaps offer to buy them drinks. The women glanced at the gold couches, smiled tightly, and spun on their heels to leave. The older man followed.