The Athenaeum is a private social club

Gentlemen's club

A gentlemen's club is a members-only private club of a type originally set up by and for British upper class men in the eighteenth century, and popularised by English upper-middle class men and women in the late nineteenth century. Today, some are more open about the gender and social status of...

 on the California Institute of Technology

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 campus.

Illustrious regulars at the Athenaeum Round Table have included
David Baltimore

David Baltimore

David Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, and is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech...

,
Robert Christy

Robert Christy

Robert F. Christy is an American theoretical physicist and later astrophysicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was also briefly president of Caltech....

,
Lee Alvin DuBridge

Lee Alvin DuBridge

Lee Alvin DuBridge was an American educator and physicist.DuBridge was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and graduated from Cornell College in 1922, and then began a teaching assignment at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, from which he received an M.A. degree in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1926...

,
Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...

,
William Alfred Fowler

William Alfred Fowler

William Alfred "Willy" Fowler was an American astrophysicist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983. He should not be confused with the British astronomer Alfred Fowler....

,
Scott Fraser

Scott E. Fraser

Scott E. Fraser is an American biologist. He is the Anna L. Rosen Professor of Biology and Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology, where he is director of the Biological Imaging Center and the founding director of the Rosen Center for Biological...

,
Jesse L. Greenstein

Jesse L. Greenstein

Jesse Leonard Greenstein was an American astronomer. His parents were Maurice G. and Leah Feingold....

,
Charles Christian Lauritsen

Charles Christian Lauritsen

Charles Christian Lauritsen was a Danish-born, American physicist.-Early life and career:Lauritsen was born in Holstebro, Denmark and studied architecture at the Odense Tekniske Skole, graduating in 1911...

,
and Maarten Schmidt

Maarten Schmidt

Maarten Schmidt is a Dutch astronomer who measured the distances of quasars.Born in Groningen, The Netherlands, Schmidt studied with Jan Hendrik Oort. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Leiden Observatory in 1956....

.

The Athenaeum was designed by Gordon Kaufmann

Gordon Kaufmann

Gordon Kaufmann was an English born American architect mostly known for his work on the Hoover Dam. He arrived in California in 1914 and during his early career he did much work in the Mediterranean Revival Style which had become popular at that time.He was also the initial architect for Scripps...

 and opened in 1930. It includes a restaurant, provides a hotel with several named suites (e.g. The Einstein Suite, where Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

 lived while at Caltech), and serves as Caltech's Faculty Club.

Membership includes Caltech faculty, staff, graduate students, alumni, trustees, and Associates of the California Institute of Technology, and staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

 (JPL), the Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory is a privately owned observatory located in San Diego County, California, southeast of Pasadena's Mount Wilson Observatory, in the Palomar Mountain Range. At approximately elevation, it is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology...

, and the Huntington Library and Art Gallery.