Marin is a magical place—so magical that one can simply step across a threshold in Mill Valley and be transported to a pocket dimension of community, health and wellness called The Portal.
The Portal is a sanctuary where members can gather to nourish body, mind and soul through ancient practices and advanced technology. Yoga courses, a members’ lounge and a biohacking spa are only a tiny part of what awaits when one steps into The Portal. Then, there are game nights, potlucks, speakers and countless more special events built to foster a healthy, happy community.
The Portal opened only last year and has since swept people off their feet through the elegant, authentic and regenerative shared spirit of collective wellness. The founders of The Portal are CEO Anwen Baumeister, CFO Tim Chang and CMO Danny Kaufman. Together, and with the help of some friends and collaborators, these three entrepreneurs spearheaded the movement toward an entirely unique business model. They created a space (a container, if you will) for the community to gather, heal and flourish together.
“Healing, wellness and connection…I wanted all of that for myself and for my community, and I wasn’t going to wait for someone else to do it,” said Baumeister. “I wanted to affect change back home, where I had an understanding of the local community and could be the most impactful and intentional.”
The fact that Baumeister could open The Portal in Marin was especially poignant for its CEO.
“The stars aligned for us to open in Marin,” Baumeister continued. “It’s been really beautiful to be able to open The Portal in my hometown. Marin is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and once we opened up The Portal, we saw that there are so many cool people in Marin—it’s mind blowing, and our members are incredible.”
Baumeister is a Marin County local who grew up in San Rafael and attended Marin Academy. Alongside her local roots, she also spent her summers visiting family in China, which gave her perspective through the experience of growing up embracing her dual cultures.
“I grew up in Marin in San Rafael, so I’m a Marin local,” explained Baumeister. “But half of my family is in China, so I’d spend my summers in China to see them. China has a deep wellness culture, so during the summertime, I’d be going to the tea houses, doing tai chi in the park, communal massages, visiting bathhouses…it’s much more communal in China versus the culture of independence in the U.S., so when I’d come back, I’d feel really isolated.”
When Baumeister was 13, she joined a Bikram yoga group in San Rafael, and her belief in the healing power of connection and wellness grew further. Then, after attending university in DC, she returned to Marin and developed a passion for herbalism that led her to a role supplying herbs to a tea house in San Rafael.
“That was my first time seeing how powerful it was to gather the community together in a space other than a bar,” Baumeister said. “At that point, I’d stopped drinking alcohol, and I wanted an alternative place to gather with friends. The nature of our society, it’s almost like you have to pick between being with friends and socializing or being healthy and isolated. But through the tea shop, I saw this new world where people were gathering around healthy habits and being co-supportive.”
As Baumeister’s interest in fostering these healthy communal spaces grew, so did her entrepreneurial spirit. In addition to obtaining yoga training in India, she opened The Well, an organic, farm-to-table restaurant in Oakland.
“That really solidified my belief in the power of having brick-and-mortar places to gather, not just for yoga, but for conversation as well,” said Baumeister.
Then, in a meeting Baumeister describes as “serendipitous,” the three founders met in their shared vision for what would soon become The Portal.
“We wanted to open a members’ club and biohacking space, and the idea was to create a community center based on human optimization and highest living,” Baumeister explained. “So, we put our heads together and started creating the container where the community can thrive and co-support each other in living their best life.”
“When we started brainstorming about The Portal, we were thinking about an upstairs members’ club space where our members could organically meet each other, have tea, listen to speakers that inspire people and facilitate a whole lot of human connection,” she continued.
The Portal was named after a sudden flash of inspiration that came to Baumeister during an Uber ride. She joked that the idea for the name came to her so suddenly that it felt as if it had actually come through a portal.
“One thing I love about the name The Portal is that you are the portal; we are all the portal,” said Baumeister. “There’s a lot of mystery in health and wellness, especially the kind where the guru has the answers to your highest wellbeing. As much as that has served some folks, we take a different approach at The Portal, and I believe that everyone is their own self-healer and that we and the community are healers for each other.”
“We don’t subscribe to wanting a specific kind of person at The Portal,” added Baumeister. “We just want people who are heart-centered who want to be living their life purpose—there’s magic in that.”
To facilitate this self-healing, The Portal offers a comprehensive biohacking spa that includes a sauna and cold plunge, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, Shiftwave nervous system training technology, Flowpresso lymphatic drainage, Rollstar Body Roller lymphatic massage, an Osaki 4D Massage Chair, Opus Bed vibroacoustic technology and an energizing BioCharger treatment, too.
This high-tech biohacking spa is paired with a comprehensive selection of yoga courses, a members-only community lounge, and an event lineup that promotes healthy connections centered around community and co-support.
“I think of it as creating a waterfall effect,” Baumeister said. “If I’m in Marin, I have friends around, but the amount of energy it takes to coordinate a dinner is a lot versus going to The Portal and having a 99% chance of meeting someone I’d love to socialize with.”
“We are part of this major movement to come back to what’s actually important,” concluded Baumeister. “I think folks are fairly done feeling sick or lonely, and they’re looking for an alternative way…and we get to create that together. Community is a co-creation, and it’s really beautiful to see that happening in real time. I’m excited to see this happen more and more across the world and for us to reclaim what we want out of our lives through what we’re valuing and how we are showing that through our actions.”
Learn more about The Portal by visiting theportal.house.
