Feature writing

The secretive club, which was founded in 1872, has counted presidents and movie stars among its members. But a full picture of who had joined was never clear—until now.

They meet, they hoped in secret, deep in California wine country in a private 2,700 acre campground in Sonoma County. But now, have the rich and famous attendees of Bohemian Grove been exposed?

Conan O’Brien, Michael Bloomberg, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt have been named as members of the elite men-only club in a full list of Bohemian Club members who allegedly attended the Grove’s two-week summer retreat in 2023. Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the late musician Jimmy Buffett, and the late billionaire political donor Charles Koch’s names also feature, as do documentarian Ken Burns, actor Jim Belushi, former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, former Director of the National Security Agency Bobby Inman, and veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Gifford Arscott.

The Bohemian Club, famed for being a secret society of the one percent, was founded in 1872. Its motto is “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here,” originating from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, intended to underscore to all those in attendance—deep in the California redwoods, beside the Russian River—not to talk business while in camp. George H.W. Bush was a member, as was Henry Kissinger. Richard Nixon reportedly launched his successful 1968 election campaign from the Grove. The club’s best-known ritual is the so-called “Cremation of Care”: the sacrifice of a burning human effigy to a large stone owl, the club’s symbol.

A fictionalized version of Bohemian Grove famously featured in Significant Others, the fifth novel in Armistead Maupin’s critically acclaimed Tales of the City book series, in which a group of popular characters infiltrate the camp’s hidden confines. Over the years several journalists and protesters have been arrested or detained, trying to gain access to the summer camp.

The 2023 list, containing around 2,000 names, was acquired by investigative journalist Daniel Boguslaw, who published it on Substack as part of an investigation of not just the club’s membership, but the interconnected power and political influence of its members conducted with More Perfect Union. Boguslaw said he had secured the list by repeatedly pestering a Club member.

While the Bohemian Club hasn’t yet commented—claiming, according to the New York Post that it doesn’t keep names of its members—the revelation of its most boldface names has been reported on in the Post, San Francisco Standard, and SFGate, which pointed out that it included five members of the San Francisco Giants ownership group, including principal owner Charles B. Johnson and his son and team chairman Greg Johnson.

In recent years, the Grove and its workings have been the subject of several lawsuits, with one worker claiming he had been mocked by club members “for complying with a request from famous billionaire William Koch to hand-wash his underwear.” (Koch is the twin brother of Republican megadonor David; a Koch spokesperson previously denied the underwear-washing claims.)

Boguslaw told the Standard he wasn’t concerned about any reprisals about going public with the list. “I’m confident in my reporting, and I’d like to see them try to fuck with me,” he said.