LA Nightlife: The Rise of House of Avalon Collective

“Burnt butter!” Grant Vanderbilt screams in a 2018 Instagram video. It’s not real butter: Marco Monroe “smears” the contents of a garbage can on Hollywood Boulevard with a sliver of palm as people walk by. “Making shit out of butter!” Vanderbilt continues. “Who wants a cocktail?” Marko adds, trying to sell products.

“We were absolutely crazy,” says Hunter Crenshaw, who was also there that night. All three are founding members of the Avalon House of Five, an elite Arkansas transplant family group that now lives in a duplex in Los Angeles. “We were doing crazy things and that’s how we got our name.” Vanderbilt and Monroe’s music video led to the band teaming up with nighttime producers Boulet Brothers at one of their first shows in Los Angeles, the Queen Kong party at the Precinct DTLA. Now, the creative hub is a force on the Los Angeles nightlife circuit. They host two ongoing events: Gloss, a biweekly drag show at the new club Heart WeHo (co-owned by Lance Bass), and the monthly SugarTank party at the Precinct.

Little Rock, Arkansas, or “Glitterrock” as they reviewed it, was the birthplace of the House of Avalon. In a small town without a prominent alternative queer scene, the band created a world of their own, inspired by Disco 2000, an old New York Limelight party and a documentary about nightclubs. a party monster. First, this materialized in parties at her shared home as the rooms were turned into facilities dedicated to Britney Spears. And then it became a series of events for local clubs like Filha de Deus, giving color to the theme of each edition. In Yellow Night, Monroe, who also works as a stylist for Lizo and Nicole Byers, asked the drag queens to wrestle in a puddle of butter. “And they did!” says Crenshaw, who is a partner at Monroe and runs Avalon House Management, which also includes RuPaul’s Drag Race Race Season 14 winner Symone and cameraman Caleb Feeney.

From their beginnings in Arkansas, they’ve gained followers and friends like singer Beth Ditto, Moschino designer Jeremy Scott, and makeup artist Mathu Andersen. Before most of the members of House Avalon moved to the City of Angels in 2017, Anderson gave Crenshaw some long-term advice. “He said, ‘I want you to come to LA and I want you to have all that shine, but I never want you to miss the smell of woodsmoke and whiskey,’” he recalls.

Earlier in Los Angeles, they danced like go-go dancers at Micky’s in West Hollywood. “[They] It really brought us down,” says Crenshaw. They then ended up hosting their own event there, a weekly party that lasted two years. “We were terrorizing these people,” says Simon. The band performed at shows wearing coordinated outfits, often designed by Monroe, that referenced pop culture. They dressed up as Coneheads, stylish Blockbuster clerks and Care Bears, among other appearances.

They now combine their late-night ventures with brand collaborations (Moschino, Drink Can, Cash App) and manage a lineup that includes Jean Paul Gaultier and Valentino at European fashion weeks. Symone says, “We just want to push the boundaries of what people expect.”

This story first appeared in the August 3 issue of The Gossipify. Click here to subscribe.