They have Marcel Wanders light fixtures and Arne Jacobsen tables; they run classic cartoon screenings and sushi-making classes; they even have their own art directors. Welcome to the world of private children's clubs.

Once the preserve of City suits and media luvvies, the private club has rolled out the alphabet blocks. With organic food made on-site and diversions for children and their adults, this new breed of club aims to fill those sometimes engaging, sometimes suicidal hours for parents that stretch between breakfast and bedtime. And now there is a platinum version.Purple Dragon opens next month near Battersea Park, southwest London. The 10,500 sq ft club caters to the under-12s and will be open daily from 9am to 9pm with theme-based “pods”, including five-hole mini-golf, a gaming area and a recording studio. Grown-ups can have manicures and neck massages in the spa or eat in the 100-seat brasserie. Founding members pay £2,500 for the first child, £1,750 for the second and £1,000 for the third. Additional children and babies under six months are free.

Kids' private clubs structure their fees in different ways, but with one common thread: you have to pay to play. Purple Dragon membership includes classes and use of all the facilities. At Maggie & Rose in West Kensington, London, families pay £500 a year and get reduced rates for individual classes and parties at the club.

Justin and Angela Hammond have three children under 3 and live in Putney, West London. “I see it in terms of costs and benefits like a gym, but we'll be using it far, far more,” says Justin, a GP who works in Chelsea. His wife, who works in media, anticipates not only coming with her children for cooking classes but to play during bad weather. “It just takes the stress out of it all,” she says. The couple are one of about 230 families who are already signed up to join. Membership is capped at 500 families.

These clubs provide everything parents desire: activities for children; good coffee; healthy food; a clean, light and attractively decorated environment. But some people are sceptical. Many of the classes on offer are available elsewhere, at the local church or park, with no membership fees attached. Private clubs can also smack of financial elitism.

Sharai Meyers, 38, the founder of Purple Dragon, doesn't dispute it. “I think by definition anything that excludes people because there's a membership base has to have some element of elistism. It's a members' club because we have to restrict numbers to offer the level of service that we want to offer and to build that sense of community,” she says.

Even for adults who go to clubs themselves, private members' clubs for kids can strike the wrong note. One City worker, whose wife and child belong to the Park Club - which he describes as a “family health club” in West London - with tennis courts, swimming pools and kids' sporting activities, says they may not represent value for money. “We pay £118 for a month,” he says. “If I want to play tennis, I have to pay £20. That kind of consumption model is better for me.”

Hammond insists that the all-inclusive membership and the relative cost of facilities elsewhere make it viable: “I thought the membership fee was a lot of money. Then you realise how much time you have to spend looking after children, entertaining them, trying to be constructive, and it makes sense.”

Meyers maintains that, while launching a luxury kids' club in the midst of financial chaos is not ideal, business is relatively good: “I think anyone would recognise that this is a difficult time. However, we've had very little price resistance when people understand that the classes and activities are all included.” Maggie & Rose is even planning to expand, opening two new clubs next year and three the following. “We're raising finance in this market, which is questionable, but our finance team seems to think it's possible,” says the owner, Maggie Bolger, 30.

It seems that parents will pay over the odds to eradicate that powerful childhood memory of the soulless, draughty church hall. In comparison, Purple Dragon will feature interiors that reflect Meyers' former career with Roland Mouret Design. Even in its unfinished state last week, builders were hanging the glossy black-domed Wanders Skygarden lights. “I wanted it to be an environment that was comfortable and beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, and that wasn't patronising to kids,” Meyers says. “A lot of the spaces can be a bit overbearing, with too many flashing lights, like being in an arcade game.”

These clubs are selling something more than ballet classes and home-made cakes. Maggie & Rose is more modest in size and ambition, but its carefully cultivated - some may say twee - atmosphere is immediately soothing: an art-directed world of parenting that you might have imagined when you were child-free: Daylesford jam, wooden toys and matching Crocs hanging in rows for both parents and children to wear when inside. The look is designed by the club's art director, Zebedee Helm. At Purple Dragon, Meyers has hired the artist Guy McKinley to create the company's Manga-like cartoon mascots.

These clubs promise the urbanite's old life of good food and boutique hotel get-aways blended with their current responsibilities of nappy changing, finger-painting and the other mundane tasks of parenthood. Yet for all their art direction, tasteful toys and attentive staff, these clubs pose the question of whether, by joining these exclusive enclaves, parents are stimulating their children or teaching them a somewhat different lesson: that, in life, money can buy happiness and you need to be a member of the club to enjoy it.

www.purpledragonplay.com | www.maggieandrose.co.uk

Times recommends

• What took place in 2010...
• Can you really cure a hangover?
• Video: How to do glamorous smoky eyes