Mountain Ridge CC’s living room after the renovation.

Mountain Ridge CC took everything back to the drawing board, to dress up its classic clubhouse for a milestone year and get its second century off to an exciting start.

It took years before the members of Mountain Ridge Country Club moved to make up for lost time—but once they did, it was only a matter of months before the West Caldwell, N.J., club had not only fully recaptured its glorious past, but taken important strides into its future as well.

Mountain Ridge was founded in 1912 and its Tudor-style clubhouse, built in 1929, still stands as a solid example of the iconic structures created by famed architect Clifford Charles Wendehack, who also designed buildings for Winged Foot Golf Club and other prestigious clubs in New York and New Jersey during a golden era of the industry’s growth.

But while the clubhouse’s exterior remained impressive as Mountain Ridge approached its 100th year, what was behind its stone walls had lost much of its luster—and also its connection with how clubs have evolved.

PROJECT SUMMARY Mountain Ridge Country Club, West Caldwell, N.J. Club: Mountain Ridge CC Location: West Caldwell, N.J. Founded: 1912 Members: 250 sustaining members (total member population: 1,000) Clubhouse Size: 15,000 sq. ft. Project Cost: $4M (includes $1.5M in golf course renovations at same time) Construction Dates: Dec. 15, 2011-April 15, 2012 Architect: F. J. Rawding, AIA, Morristown, N.J. Interior Design: Judd Brown Designs, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I. Construction Management: Donnelly Construction, Wayne, N.J. Project Highlights: Interior of historically significant building completely upgraded to restore traditional character while improving appeal and functionality. Popular new sports bar created from largely unused card room/storage space and connected to main grill. Food-and-beverage revenues increased 25% in first year of operation after renovation.

“What had happened historically was that, like many clubs, [Mountain Ridge] had done a series of capital projects [for the clubhouse] in bits and pieces,” says Bruce Schonbraun. When Schonbraun began a four-year term as the club’s President in 2008, he and his Board decided it was time for a “fresh look” and a more effective approach.

“We had a grand club with a unique feel, but doing things piecemeal wasn’t doing the members justice,” says Schonbraun. “We decided a total renovation of the interior was needed, not only for aesthetics, but also for how it was being used.”

Taking a closer look at how the 15,000 sq. ft. within the clubhouse were arranged shined a harsh spotlight on several areas that were long overdue for change. “There was a lot of wasted and underutilized dead space,” says Stephen Wolsky, who has been Mountain Ridge’s General Manager for the past 15 years. “It was clear that a thorough repurposing of the clubhouse was needed, especially for an area like the men’s card room, which was in a prime location just off our main grill, but was now hardly being used even for card playing, and had become a storage area as much as anything else.”

As discussions began, both internally and with outside professionals, on how a full renovation could bring the clubhouse up with the times (the card room was eyed as the perfect spot for a new sports pub), areas with still-viable purposes were also targeted for overhauls. In these cases, restoring what had been lost from earlier times would be just as important as updating their current and future functionality.

“[The Mountain Ridge clubhouse] is a very significant architectural building, but years of use had attacked the historical appeal of what was still within its shell,” says Judd Brown, President of Judd Brown Designs, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I. “In addition to creating more appropriate use for some of the space in the building, the renovation offered the opportunity to upgrade all finishes and make them period-correct again [with the Wendehack era], to reinforce the club’s high-end brand.”

A comprehensive book, complete with detailed renderings of how all of the various rooms in the clubhouse would be upgraded, was prepared and distributed to Mountain Ridge’s 250 members. The $4 million capital project (which would include $1.5 million in golf course renovations, to prepare for hosting the 2012 USGA Senior Amateur Championship) would need to be funded in part by a $2,700 member assessment. But putting it all on paper created excitement and support among the membership, Schonbraun says, by clearly showing how “we would make very measurable and massive renovations while also enhancing the character and grandeur of the club.”

Shifting Into High Gear
Once the decision to proceed with a full renovation was made, the project got on a fast track, and not only because of the desire to complete everything in time for 2012’s 100th anniversary celebration and the Senior Amateur tournament. Six months before construction was to begin in December 2011 (with a must-hit completion date set for the following April), a special, temporary renovation committee was formed.

Mountain Ridge’s new sports pub represented a breakthrough, literally and figuratively, for the club—it was created by breaking down a wall that had separated it from the main grill, and has had immediate appeal to members desiring a more casual venue.

“We kept the committee small and made sure it would be action-oriented,” says Schonbraun. “We put members on it who would be able to quickly and expertly answer questions as our contractors brought them up, such as Meg Jacobs, who is an interior designer. And we put Joe Bier in charge of the committee, because he knows how to run projects.”

Bier, President of an electrical manufacturing company,  cites three keys to running the project efficiently: being accessible, being responsive, and then getting out of the way. “The committee was empowered to make decisions on the fly, so the professionals we had hired wouldn’t have to wait three days for answers,” he says. “But our job was not to impart our own tastes, just to provide answers expediently and then let the experts do their jobs. This was also important for fighting the ‘scope creep’ that occurs when too many people try to make their own imprints and add their own preferences.”

With the leadership provided by Schonbraun and John Fanburg, who succeeded him as President in 2011, and the on-point direction from Bier’s committee as well as Wolsky, who provided knowledge of how the club needed to function in both the front and back of the house (the renovations also included a complete overhaul of the kitchen), the project was completed in time for members’ return for the 2012 season.

The Big Reveal
From the moment they came back, walked past the building’s familiar stone facade and through the same front doors, members found a breathtaking new, contemporary-yet-classic look within a clubhouse that had been transformed from top to bottom of each room—starting with the entrance lobby, moving into the members’ lounge, with its distinctive vaulted-beam ceiling that can also be easily rearranged for functions, and extending through several dining venues and the locker room areas.

In addition to the physical upgrades made in each room, the project included a start-to-finish makeover of furnishings, tabletop settings and other aspects of decor for all of Mountain Ridge’s dining venues.

The most dramatic change was seen in the new sports pub, which represented a breakthrough for the club, literally and figuratively. The wall that had separated the old card-and-storage room from the main grill and bar had been blown out, and the two rooms, originally created on different levels as a result of the piecemeal approach, were now connected with a small flight of steps.

“Our average age has been going down a lot, and [the pub] has been a great use of the space that’s being enjoyed by all members, but especially younger members,” Wolsky says. “We had already relaxed our rules to allow jeans on Friday nights, and now our decor caught up with that trend.”

Other dining options in the clubhouse also received significant transformations. A more formal dining area adjacent to the lounge now boasts banquette seating, a new restaurant market-style wine display and an upscale coffee station. Just outside the grill room, half of an expanded patio that can now accommodate 120 people is reserved as a place where children under 10 can be seated with their families.

The small dining room reflected how the project helped Mountain Ridge recapture its grand traditions while taking important steps into today’s, and tomorrow’s, club world. Like many clubs, the walls of the room had displayed hand-painted, but now badly faded, listings of club and tournament champions. As part of the room’s upgrade, these signs were lovingly recreated, using the same historical colors and fonts, and put back in the same position.

Mountain Ridge CC has restored its grandeur while updating its appeal and functionality.

The makeover of each dining area also included start-to-finish rethinking of every aspect of their decor. “We changed silverware, plates, menus, linens—even staff uniforms,” says Wolsky.  The changes, in total, offered enough new eye appeal on their own to allow windows to remain “fairly uncovered,” notes Judd Brown, providing the added bonuses of natural lighting and enjoyable views throughout the building.

The renovation also prompted Mountain Ridge to create a position for a Food & Beverage Director and hire Ruan Silva, previously with the Sea Island resort in Georgia and the Ritz-Carlton organization, to help take all aspects of its F&B operation to a new level. The added focus and investment has already paid off—Wolsky says the club has seen a 25% increase in F&B revenues this year. That business, currently totaling $1.6 million annually, is split equally between a la carte and member-sponsored events—and “both areas are going up” as a result of the changes that have been made, Wolsky says.

“It’s amazing what you can get used to with how a club looks—and how much of a lift you can get by upgrading everything to provide comfortable dining venues that fit with the times,” Wolsky adds. “It was an action-packed year, but we definitely hit a home run, all the way around.”

Modern features complement the atmosphere created by an abundance of floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the club.

When you’ve run a club for 40 years, you get pretty good at recognizing and anticipating when a reality check is needed—and then moving quickly to identify and implement the best response.

Patrick Hebrard-Bopp, who has been the General Manager of the Petroleum Club of Fort Worth (PCFW) for two-thirds of the club’s existence, started to sense that his club was approaching another critical crossroads well before it was scheduled to renew its lease in the Carter-Burgess Tower in downtown Fort Worth. PCFW had occupied the top two (39th and 40th) floors of that Texas skyscraper (Fort Worth’s third-tallest building) for nearly 30 years. But Hebrard-Bopp knew that much had changed in the club world and that the end of the current lease would signal a time for a serious reassessment of PCFW’s spacial requirements and how it could best serve the needs of its members.

PROJECT SUMMARYClub: Petroleum Club of Fort Worth Location: Fort Worth, Texas Founded: 1953 Members: 1,200 Clubhouse Size: 20,000 sq. ft. Renovation Cost: $6 million Construction Dates: September 2010-April 2011 Architect: CCI Club Design Interior Design: CCI Club Design Project Highlights: Club operations were consolidated from two floors of high-rise building to one, with 95% of existing business retained. Unique 40th-floor patio space, with fireplace, flat-screen TV and exterior lounge furnishings, created by carving into high-rise building and constructing “curtain wall” for weather protection. Large functions can still be accommodated through state-of-the-art audio-visual system that allows speakers and programs to be transmitted to all club dining rooms.

“When we started in the building in 1982, we had 3,000 members and had a great lease, and having 40,000 sq. ft. on two floors was perfect,” Hebrard-Bopp says. “But now we were down to 1,200 members, and were looking at a drastic cost increase for when the lease would be renewed.

“I went to our Board and said we needed to look at all of our options,” he continues. “We had been in other buildings before, and we could look at moving again. But it was important for us as a city club, and as one that’s tied to the oil industry that’s a big part of this city’s business, to not only be downtown, but to be in one of the city’s most prominent buildings.

“We liked the parking arrangement we had here, and we liked the views we could offer from here. Everything about the space we had was comfortable—except there was too much of it, and it was going to get much more expensive.”

That’s when Hebrard-Bopp and the PCFW Board had an “aha” moment. Why not find a way to keep the club where it was, but only use—and pay for—the space it really needed?

This thought inspired Hebrard-Bopp to take a hard, objective look at how the club was currently configured. The more he looked, the more he realized that spreading out an operation over two floors, when it was now only about a third as large as when PCFW moved into the building, was really just wasting a lot of space. What’s more, most of that waste resided on the lower level, now largely devoted to storage, function rooms that weren’t fully used, and administrative areas.

We can stay here, he realized, and even keep our best floor, by just figuring out how to fit the club into half the space.

Putting It All in One Place
To help put that idea on paper, Hebrard-Bopp turned to a friendly and familiar source: CCI Club Design of Irving, Texas, which had designed the original layout over two floors when the club first moved to the Carter-Burgess Tower, and had later helped PCFW complete a major, $1.5 million refurbishing of selected portions in 1997.

The wine room at PCFW

In addition to comfortably and attractively accommodating what was still a sizable club operation in half the square footage, Hebrard-Bopp also told CCI he would want the change to include another major upgrade of decor and amenities, to ensure the club would appeal to the next generation of members. The new design would also have to be creative and flexible enough to still properly solicit and serve all the functions PCFW was used to having—some of which involved as many as 500 people.

“I told [CCI] that I wanted to keep the club aspect in how the space looked and felt, with rich woods and other touches and tones,” says Hebrard-Bopp. “But this was also a chance to transition to something completely different from what we’ve ever had, for a more contemporary look that wouldn’t have any suggestion of a drab place with your grandmother’s drapes.”

CCI helped to draw up plans for how all of these goals could be accomplished. But as the idea took shape, another reality hit home: Keeping PCFW in its present location, and positioning it to make an important transition to the next generation of membership, would not come cheaply, even for a project that would leave it with half as much space. The project priced out at $6 million, including new furnishings. “We had $3 million in the bank, but didn’t want to assess members or take on debt,” says Hebrard-Bopp. “Fortunately, the plans generated enough excitement that another $3 million was raised through voluntary contributions.”

Going Out with a Bang
With assurance that the needed funds would be available, the next challenge was to funnel the club operation upwards and into half the space, with minimal disruption. “We always strive to keep clubs open and advise they never be shut down completely during renovations, so members are never fully deprived of club amenities,” says Patrick Hazard, AIA, CCI’s VP Architect who served as Project Manager.

General Manager Patrick Hebrard-Bopp has directed PCFW’s operations for 40 years—and can now keep up with it all in half the steps.

In this case, however, the club’s kitchen was on the upper floor, which would have to be completely demolished before it could be redone. As a result, some important final purposes were conceived for the lower floor, before it and PCFW would go their separate ways. During the rebuilding of the “new” 40th floor, the 39th floor was kept open, and a temporary kitchen was constructed out of storage space.

“This actually worked out well because it gave us a chance to bring in, test out and get experience with some of the new kitchen equipment that was being ordered, by putting it to use in the temporary kitchen first,” says Hazard.
Construction at PCFW—which in this case involved equal amounts of deconstruction—began in September 2010. Seven months later, the streamlined, one-floor version of the club was unveiled. And for an organization that was pushing 60 years old, it was now looking pretty youthful and up with the times.

Keeping Everyone Connected
New spaces that were created for the club through the renovation included a main dining room with an arched ceiling that seats 120; a bar lounge with a unique oval ceiling and glowing, backlit amber back bar; two smaller dining/function rooms, the Permian and Derrick  rooms, that seat 36 and 30; a wine room, surrounded by conditioned wine cabinets and an adjacent cellar, with seating for 12; and the Wildcatters Room, with banquet space for up to 300.

While the new Wildcatters Room does not have enough capacity by itself to always accommodate groups wanting to use PCFW for their functions, the club is now equipped to handle even larger meetings, thanks to “virtual banquet” capabilities. Made possible by state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, including telephones, cameras, projectors and drop-down screens, speakers’ programs in the Wildcatters Room (or other parts of the club) can now be transmitted to the main dining room and other dining/function spaces.

Floor plan of post-renovation PCFW (click to enlarge)

Other new features that came with the renovation included a dance floor with a DJ station, and a large built-in buffet that can be accessed from every dining room on the floor.

The fact that the club is 400 feet above the ground also didn’t keep the PCFW renovation from getting in on the “indoor/outdoor connectivity” trend that marks many of today’s country club and golf course design and redesign projects.

Upon returning to their re-imagined club, PCFW members found the delightful surprise of a new open-air patio off the main dining room, with a glass and steel guardrail where windows once were. The exterior space is less than 200 sq. ft., but includes an outdoor fireplace, flat-screen TV and inviting exterior lounge furnishings, and can accommodate “a dozen or so” people comfortably, according to John Herron, FIIDA, CCI’s Senior VP, Interior Design.

Creating the patio was “quite the engineering feat,” Herron adds. The exterior space literally had to be carved out of the building and a “curtain wall” was erected to create a non-structural, independent exterior that provides weather protection. This aspect of the project needed special permitting and was subjected to extra scrutiny during the design review—but all of the effort proved well worth it, as soon as members discovered and enjoyed even more spectacular views of the Fort Worth skyline and surrounding area than can be seen through the abundance of floor-to-ceiling picture windows in the rest of the club.

“We keep the patio open every day,” says Hebrard-Bopp. “It’s not for parties, it’s just for people and small groups to be able to go out and use whenever they’d like. We’ll serve breakfast and lunch out there if requested. When it gets to be 100 degrees in the summer, it doesn’t get used that much, but all of the rest of the time, it’s been very popular.”

Winning Everyone’s Vote of Approval
In the year and a half since the Petroleum Club of Fort Worth started its new lease on life, “popular” has been the operative word for how a one-floor operation has been received by existing members, prospective ones, and the club’s staff.

PCFW’s new patio, off the main dining room, is less than 200 sq. ft., but has opened up a vast new world to the club and its members.

“We’ve had an increase in membership and [the new look] is really helping to attract younger members,” says Sandy Drake, the club’s Membership and Private Events Director. The ability to spread functions through a variety of rooms and connect them via the new A/V system is proving to be another plus, she adds. “Many of our [function] clients like the flexibility of not having to put everyone in one big banquet room, and the intimacy this can offer for all or part of their group,” she says. “Some companies are now having many more regular functions with us than they did before, because of what we can now offer.”

From an operations standpoint, Hebrard-Bopp says, service is now “infinitely more efficient” with everything concentrated on one floor. “Something is ready in the kitchen and zoom, we take it to the right dining room,” he says. “No more carts up and down between the floors.”

Adding the dance floor and hiring a DJ to make full use of the new sound system, instead of bringing in live bands as the club used to do three nights a week, has proved to be another win-win example of the benefits of taking the club to a (single) new level, Hebrard-Bopp adds. “It’s way less expensive, much easier to set up, and most importantly, gives the members and guests exactly what they want for their entertainment,” he says. “If you want cha-cha or Lady Gaga, the DJ can provide it.”

All of the new PCFW dining and function rooms are connected through a state-of-the-art audio-visual system that allows the club to still accommodate groups as large as 500 through “virtual banquet” capabilities.

There are some things about the way the Petroleum Club of Fort Worth used to be structured, Hebrard-Bopp admits, that he, and members, still miss. “We did have a beautiful staircase that connected the two floors that of course had to go,” he says. “But it was clear that we just couldn’t keep that much space; we  would have had to raise dues too much.

“It’s a different time in the club industry; we can see that from how some of the clubs we have reciprocity with have been struggling,” he says. “If you don’t stay up with the times, you can’t survive.

“We’ve kept 95% of the business we had before while now being on one floor, with a smaller staff and less operating expense, and while offering better service and amenities to our members,” Hebrard-Bopp says. “I think it’s clear this was what we needed to do to keep our status and tradition, while also positioning ourselves properly for the future.”

Pool deck at Scarsdale GC in Hartsdale, N.Y.

The directions posted on the club website for how to get to Scarsdale Golf Club are as helpful for what they tell travelers NOT to do (in all capital letters, to make sure the message gets across) as for the detailed routing instructions that are provided. Clearly, when writing the directions, the staff at Scarsdale GC—located in the hamlet of Hartsdale, 20 miles north of New York City in Westchester County—wanted to do everything possible to help members and guests avoid the perils of making a wrong turn when trying to navigate the New York metropolitan area.

The club has now gone out of its way to ensure that once people arrive at Scarsdale GC, they can also have an experience that is as far removed from the hassles of the city as possible. To complement its long-standing status as one of the area’s top recreational havens—with a history that dates to 1898 and includes a golf course designed in the 1920s by A.W. Tillinghast, as well as active tennis, platform tennis, bowling and swimming programs—the club recently unveiled the results of a $7.5 million renovation and expansion of its North Complex facility, which adjoins its classic clubhouse that was built in 1921 and renovated in 2004.

Scarsdale GC’s new-look North Complex (far right) now matches well with the clubhouse and the needs of members and staff. PROJECT SUMMARY Club: Scarsdale Golf Club Location: Hartsdale, N.Y. Founded: 1898 Members: 524 Facility Size: North Complex building expanded 7,000 sq. ft., to 25,000 sq. ft. Renovation/Expansion Project Cost: $7.5 million Construction: Sept. 2011-June 2012 Architect: Chambers Interior Design: Chambers Construction Management: DHI Construction Services Highlights: Major upgrade of ladies locker room. New adult pool deck with upgraded F&B and enhanced course views. New fitness center to help increase club use from commuters who use parking lot on a daily basis. “Midway Cafe” takes halfway house concept to new level with branded products and expanded menu, and becomes destination of its own.

The North Complex project added a much-needed fitness center and made major facility improvements to the ladies’ locker room, pro shop, cart barn, bag room and pool area, as well as snack venues at the pool and at the golf course turn. Just as significantly, the project included subtle touches designed to enhance the “resort-type setting,” as General Manager/Chief Operating Officer William Minard describes it, that has put Scarsdale GC on the map as one of the New York area’s most accessible sources of secluded recreation and relaxation.

“[Scarsdale GC] definitely has a unique advantage with how its property is set up,” agrees Rick Snellinger, President of Chambers, the Baltimore, Md., firm that served as the architect for the North Complex project. “It’s in the middle of the biggest metropolitan area in the country, and you can walk to a train station from its parking lot and get to Manhattan in minutes. But when you’re at the club, you feel like you’re nestled in a place that’s 100 miles from any city.”

Embracing the Challenge
The North Complex project was driven by a need to upgrade the ladies’ locker room while also addressing an existing structure that was on its last legs. The building, which had not been significantly renovated since 1956 and was feeling the effects of deferred maintenance, needed a major upgrade to bring not only the ladies’ locker room, but also the pool changing facilities and golf support areas it contained up to par with the men’s locker room and other clubhouse features housed in the main building.

At the same time, Minard, who came to Scarsdale GC from nearby Westchester Country Club in 2006, and who is a Culinary Institute of America graduate, saw that the project could also offer the opportunity for taking auxiliary F&B venues on the property to new levels, and for introducing fitness as an amenity that would be essential to the club’s future success (he had overseen installation of a new fitness center at Westchester CC in 2004).

The challenge came from the fact that the North Complex building was connected to the club’s swimming pool, which still had a useful life. So the project had to be shaped, as Snellinger describes it, as “a retrofit where essentially a new building would be wrapped around a major component that wouldn’t change.”

That’s not to say, though, that the pool area would be left untouched. A case can be made, in fact, that while what was spent on pool-related parts of the project was relatively minor, the impact from those changes was perhaps the most immediate and dramatic. The pool enhancements were also important to stay competitive in a market that not only includes other private clubs but the high-quality municipal pools of affluent Westchester County.

Playgrounds for All Ages
The pool area work included expansion of the kiddie pool and the addition of water-play features (aqua domes, bubblers and dump buckets). At the same time, Scarsdale GC’s “bigger kids” got a great new “play” area of their own, in the form of a new, elevated adult deck (designated for 21 and older) that includes an outdoor bar.

The club’s new pool deck was an immediate hit at its Grand Opening party in June, and has continued to be a popular go-to spot.

The deck was created in what had been a nondescript eating area for a standard pool snack bar. It now features comfortable and colorfully cushioned new outdoor furniture, decking that resembles hardwood flooring, and a distinctive pergola assembled in a series of tight, trellis-like grids. “The way it’s set up, it provides tremendous shade while still having an open feeling,” says Minard. “And we left it unpainted, to add to the resort-like setting.”

Because the adult deck sits atop the part of the North Complex building that was being bumped out to accommodate the need, on its main level, for an expanded lounge area in the ladies locker room, it also gained a huge bonus from being moved closer to Scarsdale GC’s Tillinghast golf course.

“Now we have a million-dollar view that gives us more opportunities, and flexibility, for parties and weddings,” says Minard. “Eventually I can see us offering some a la carte dining out there, too.”

Already, on an everyday basis, all levels of the new-look pool area (which also got a complete makeover with high-quality pavers) have been seeing impressive levels of traffic that began with a Grand Opening party that attracted over 300 people.

The upgraded pool cafe features a new chopped salad bar that has been an immediate home run, reports Scarsdale GM/COO William Minard, with an average of 50 salads being made each weekday and as many as 200 on the busiest weekend days.

One major new draw that has kept members coming back is the chopped salad bar at the enhanced cafe, with full-service kitchen, that replaced the previous snack bar. “We wanted to go beyond your typical burgers and other snack bar food,” Minard says. He set up a line where a full variety of options are offered, including six dressings, for customized personal salads that are made as they are ordered, one at a time, in an operation that emphasizes freshness and cleanliness with every step (chopping is done with a special two-handled blade, mixing is done in a wooden bowl, cutting boards are washable and new mats are used for every salad).

“It’s been a home run from the start,” says Minard. “We’ve been averaging 50 salads on weekdays, and on weekends we make from 150 to 200 per day. The next step is to start making wraps from the same line.”

Healthy Outlook
The excitement over the new views gained through the project carried over to the other side of the expanded North Complex facility as well, with treadmills and other equipment in the new fitness center positioned to also enjoy panoramic golf course vistas.

With many members parking at Scarsdale GC for their daily commutes into New York, adding a fitness center was a natural way to boost club activity in both the morning and evening.

While Scarsdale GC was late to get into the fitness game, it could draw from one huge built-in advantage to help it catch up in a hurry. “At any time we’ll have 80 to 90 members using our parking lot to commute [to New York] each day,” says Minard. (Hartsdale’s train station is just a short walk from the club.)

Scarsdale GC also had the benefit of Minard’s experience with the Westchester CC fitness center. “I had a good sense for what to expect in terms of size needed, and the usage it would get,” he says. Over 3,000 square feet was dedicated to fitness in the expanded North Complex building, divided among a main workout room and a separate aerobics studio.

Management of Scarsdale GC’s new fitness operation has been contracted out to The Salus Group, which has developed a niche with private clubs in the New York market, including the Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y. (“Breathing Room,” C&RB, June 2009) and Greenwich (Conn.) CC (“A Name That Works,” C&RB, June 2008). Now that it’s open, Minard has seen a quick climb to steady usage that he doesn’t expect to subside; he’s planning for 365 days of 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. operation.

“All the statistics show [fitness] is an amenity a club now has to have to attract members,” he says. “And when you have it, it has a positive effect on how all members use other parts of your facilities, too.”

From Halfway House to Midway Cafe
Activity at the fitness center has certainly been a big reason—but not the only one—for the success of the Midway Cafe, the club’s unique new take on F&B that’s designed to serve not only golfers as they come on or off the course or make the turn, but also those using other parts of the North Complex. And for many, the cafe has become a destination all its own.

The new Midway Cafe featuring Peet’s-branded products has turned a typical halfway-house concept into a destination that reminds members of where they like to go when traveling.

Inspired by retail set-ups he’s seen at boutique hotels and resorts—there’s that word again—Minard says the goal was “to go beyond a limited menu with no hot food and build a cafe that mirrors Starbucks’ grab-and-go concept.” As part of following that model, he’s put several flat-screen TVs in the cafe and also pipes in music through a sophisticated sound system that can be switched to TV sound if needed or requested.

And to really make the comparison complete, Minard—in what to his knowledge is the first such arrangement in a private club setting—arranged with the California-based Peet’s Coffee & Tea chain to sell, and make, Peet’s-branded products in the cafe.

“We buy the product direct and make it on our equipment, with our staff,” Minard says. “It’s a win-win because they’re trying to get more of a presence in the East, and it gives us a better look and product and adds credibility to what we’re offering.

“The feedback I get all the time when members come in here is they say this makes them feel like where they like to go when they travel,” he adds. “And that’s exactly what I was aiming for.”

Bringing Drawings to Life
To Chambers’ Rick Snellinger, great views and concepts like the Midway Cafe are what distinguish inspired projects from ones that simply create nice new buildings.

Ladies locker room at Scarsdale GC in Hartsdale, N.Y.

“I tell managers and Board members all the time, it’s not just about the bricks and mortar,” Snellinger says. “It’s also about the member/guest experience. And it doesn’t have to be something major to have a significant benefit—[the Scarsdale project] shows how things that didn’t involve that much cost in the grand scheme of things have helped to make a real difference and take a needed project to another level.

“The spectacular views from the adult deck and fitness center are hidden gems you can’t really know about just by putting lines on a drawing. And halfway houses or snack areas at the turn are often overlooked or treated as afterthoughts. But when you add cutting-edge ideas and good operators to a sound building plan, that’s where you really get the energy and rejuvenation that a renovation project should provide.”

At Scarsdale GC, that new energy is tangible, not only in how existing members have embraced the changes brought by the project, but in significant buzz and interest among prospective new members as well.

“We’re incredibly busy in all areas, and revenues in some outlets are off the charts,” says Minard. “We’ve also gained over 50 new members since the start of the year, and what we were bringing on stream through this project was definitely a big part of that. You have to have the right facilities to be competitive, and I think we’ve now built the right things and added the right amenities that will help maintain us as a leading family club for many years to come.”

For a complete list of Scarsdale GC’s fitness center equipment, click here.
Click on the following links to see site plans for the North Complex project:

• Site Plan
• Lower Level Plan
• Upper Level Plan
• Upper Level Pool Deck Plan

The renewal of clubhouse renovation activity has brought with it a heightened emphasis on not only creating new looks and spaces that better fit the needs of today’s—and tomorrow’s—clubs, but also on fixing how facilities have often been badly neglected for many years of the past.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of the type of infrastucture upgrade that many clubs must now address comes from Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, which recently completed the final stages of a $12 million, two-year, two-phase project to bring its 95-year-old facility up to current codes and replace all of its internal systems.

Founded in 1916, Scioto’s heritage is among the richest in golf. Its course was designed by Donald Ross, and Scioto CC is also where a young Jack Nicklaus honed his game with legendary teaching professional Jack Grout. Scioto also ranks among an elite group of clubs that have hosted five different major championships, including the U.S. Open (1926), the Ryder Cup (1931), the PGA Championship (1950), the U.S. Amateur Championship (1968) and the U.S. Senior Open Championship (1986).

In addition to its championship golf course and the rich golfing legacy it spawned, the club’s amenities have also grown over the years to include a spacious clubhouse, an indoor golf practice facility, a comprehensive fitness facility, four swimming pools, eleven tennis courts and four platform tennis courts.

But with that growth came added operating challenges—particularly where the clubhouse was concerned. After the facility was originally built in 1916, much of it burned in 1951. Over the next 50-plus years, repairs were made in patchwork fashion, with little attention paid to the building’s long-term health.

An engineering study conducted five years ago revealed that the club needed to invest about $6 million to properly update its infrastructure. The long list of pressing needs included a new HVAC system, new plumbing, new electric, fire suppression, handicap accessibility, asbestos removal, rebuilding the kitchen facilities to include new hood structures, and fully repairing the basement.

“We needed a safe facility with good infrastructure that was in good working order,” says Greg Comfort, Chair of Scioto’s Long-Range Planning Committee who also served as President and Past President during the renovation project. “We had been fixing it forever, and it was at the end of its rope.”

At the same time, club leaders knew they needed to enhance and improve clubhouse amenities, to boost member usage and satisfaction. “The members felt that if we were going to spend $6 million on infrastructure, it made sense to improve the aesthetics and functionality of the clubhouse at the same time,” says Comfort.

To begin to bring Scioto CC into the modern age, the club devised a plan for tackling its issues from the inside out. After renovating the 96-year-old clubhouse’s aging infrastructure, architectural and aesthetic improvements would begin. That part of the project wouldn’t involve modernization in all cases, however; as part of the renovation, some features of the original clubhouse were restored. About 15,000 square feet of new space would also be added (taking the building to its current 70,000 sq. ft.), including new outdoor dining space that can serve over 200 a la carte diners.

With ties to Donald Ross, Jack Nicklaus and five major championships, Scioto CC now has clubhouse facilities that are a suitable match for its rich golf heritage.

Out with the Old

Here is a room-by-room, function-by-function rundown of the infrastructure improvements that had to be addressed to make up for all the lost time, before any steps into a new era could be taken:

• System Controls—Prior to the renovation, the clubhouse had an old steam heating system and 40- to 50-year-old chillers, which made it difficult to tweak the temperature within the facility as needed. “We couldn’t chill or heat when we wanted to; we had to turn one system off when the other went on,” says General Manager Greg Wolf, CCM, CCE.Additionally, the aging chillers consumed more energy than any other system on the property. The new HVAC system is comprised of rooftop units and an efficient, air-cooled chiller.Updating the club’s electric system began by removing the labyrinth of wires, piping, duct work, tubing and panels that had been added into the basement through the years. “You couldn’t get into the basement; it was one layer of infrastructure added onto another added onto another,” says Wolf. “The whole ceiling was nothing but wires and pipes, and some of them weren’t even working.”

  The old system was ripped out and replaced with modern wiring and upgraded panels. The club added energy-efficient lighting, with master panels to allow dimming throughout the facility.

• Perfecting the Plumbing—All of the old sewer lines were redone, the entire basement was gutted and re-plumbed, and new gas lines were installed. New plumbing was also installed in the kitchen and outside of the facility. The renovation included new sanitary sewers as well. Finally, storm sewers were added to the parking lot, which previously had insufficient surface drains that would back up.
  

  One renovated room gave new prominence to a portrait of young Jack Nicklaus, who honed his game at Scioto with legendary teaching pro Jack Grout.

  As the club updated these plumbing issues, it also decided to enclose the six-lane competition pool, to provide members with an all-season swimming facility. “We wanted to add amenities to the club that provided our members with year-round utilization and benefits,” says Comfort.

• Fire Protection—To protect the new facility, a fire suppression system was installed throughout the entire clubhouse, including the crawl spaces, basement and second-floor attic. Adding a sprinkler system to an aging building like this was a major challenge. “The biggest issue when you have an old facility like ours is that you have to go through plastered walls and ceilings to put in the sprinklers,” says Wolf. “So you not only have to install it, you have to repair all the damage as well.”
• Safe Air Quality—The engineering survey revealed an asbestos issue on the property. An environmental firm evaluated the site to figure out where the asbestos was located, and provided a recommendation on how to remove it. Most of the asbestos was removed from the basement ceiling.“Wherever pipes ran through ceilings, they were usually wrapped in asbestos, because that was a way to preserve heat,” says Wolf. “They would wrap steam pipes in it above a ceiling. So if we pulled down the ceiling, we would have asbestos areas,  and they would have to encapsulate the whole area.”An environmental contractor was brought in to remove the material. The contractor closed different areas of the clubhouse, and utilized negative air pressure to remove and dispose of the asbestos safely. Subsequent to that, during the remodeling phase additional asbestos was found and removed as well.
• Kitchen Upgrade—As part of the renovation, the kitchen was gutted down to the outside walls. Through the years, the kitchen had fallen into disrepair, with an antiquated hood system and dilapidated flooring. “The integrity of the floors was damaged through the years by running conduit and pipe through the joists, so it had to be rebuilt,” says Wolf.
  

  “The members felt that if we were going to spend $6 million on infrastructure, it made sense to improve the aesthetics and functionality of the clubhouse at the same time,” says Greg Comfort, Chair of Scioto CC’s Long-Range Planning Committee, who also served as President and Past President during the two-year project.

  The new kitchen is a bit larger and boasts a new makeup air system, exhaust system and hood system. The air system stabilizes the fresh air coming into the facility and creates negative pressure, so everything can exhaust out efficiently. All plumbing, electrical and floor drains were completely redone.

  While the club maintained some of its existing kitchen equipment, it also added additional freezers and coolers, including a keg and bar system cooler. An elevator was added to provide easy access to the second-floor bakery, basement storage and a new receiving area.

  “The chef was heavily involved in the new kitchen’s layout, picking equipment and assigning lines,” says Wolf. “We also changed how the lines functioned. The cold line is now more efficiently located by the hot line. It is a much better layout, and it runs more efficiently.”

An Inspired Remodel

After the 1951 fire destroyed about two-thirds of Scioto’s original clubhouse, it was rebuilt in a different style—and that was also the case for several other renovations and additions that followed. “The various remodels took on the tone and style of their time,” says Wolf. “What was done in 1916 was very different than what was done in 1952, which was different from what was done in the ‘60s and what was done in the ‘80s. They all had a different flavor.”

To create a more consistent and appealing look, the interior spaces were remodeled in the original clubhouse’s traditional style. “The goal was to have a modern facility, but still with the charm of a 100-year-old building,” says Wolf.

The architects brought back a classical design by utilizing traditional materials of stone, brick, metal railings, cast stone and siding in aesthetically pleasing proportions. One example can be seen in a new terrace at the rear of the clubhouse. As one of the most popular new features at the club, the terrace houses an outdoor bar and televisions, along with a gathering area around a firepit. The terrace has Pennsylvania Bluestone pavers with an Ashlar pattern, and a stained wood ceiling. A white Chippendale railing pays homage to a rear railing from the original clubhouse that was destroyed in the fire.

“The porch was a replica from the original clubhouse, down to the railing,” says Comfort. “We brought that historic feature back to the clubhouse.”

“The goal was to have a modern facility, but still with the charm of a 100-year-old building,” says General Manager Greg Wolf.

The club also completely redid, and renamed, its mixed grille, now called the 1916 Grille. Prior to the renovation, the grille was rarely used by some portions of the membership. But as the 1916 Grille, it’s become a hotspot for members of all ages. Located on the first floor, it offers a warm space with a wood-beamed ceiling, wood floors and columns (see photo, pg. 31). Booths throughout the room create a more relaxed, family-friendly dining environment, and a fireplace with a natural stone hearth and mantle adds to the rustic vibe.

“Now we have many more young families who want to use the 1916 Grille,” says Wolf. “It has become a more active and more pleasant room for dining.”

One of the biggest aesthetic changes can be found in the new History Hall. A formerly nondescript hallway that runs through the center of the clubhouse now displays memorabilia from the five significant tournaments hosted at Scioto.

The hallway has wood paneling and beams created with character-grade stained wood. The wood’s imperfect and aged finish complements the historic tone of the space, and gives the sense that the history display has been part of the club for a long time.

Overall, the new clubhouse has a more uniform look, while maintaining a classic, historic design. “You don’t feel like you’re walking from one area to another anymore. It has a consistent feel all the way through,” says Wolf. “And even though everything is new, you feel like it’s been there for a long time.”

While the final phase of the renovation project was just completed in December 2011, the feedback from the renovation has already been strongly positive. Scioto has a waiting list, so spurring new membership applications was not a primary motivation for the renovation. But it’s already clear that all of the work will pay off from how existing members now use the club, in addition to making it more attractive for future generations.

“There’s an energy in the club right now that hasn’t been here for a few years,” says Wolf.  “We will definitely see an increase in utilization.” In fact, in November 2011 alone, the club saw a 40% increase in dining compared to the previous year.

Further, the infrastructure improvements have paved the way for the club to run smoothly and efficiently for years to come. “We were in constant maintenance mode,” says Wolf. “This will take us through the next 30 to 40 years, for our next wave of members.”

Three thousand square feet is a fair amount of space for offering some variety—if you’re running a convenience store. But when that space is adjacent to locker rooms on the lower level of a century-old clubhouse, you can often expect to find it being used for a pretty typical —and unexciting—bar-and-grille setup.

That was certainly the case at Maplewood (N.J.) Country Club, where for years the bottom floor of its venerable brick clubhouse was dominated by one big expanse of low-ceilinged, striped-wallpapered, drab-carpeted, standard-furnishings dullness. The look and feel of the basement area wasn’t even changed by a $4 million renovation, conducted in the mid-’90s, that gutted much of the rest of the building.

“We ran out of money before we got to the basement, and it wasn’t part of the master plan anyway,” says Maplewood’s General Manager, Michael Lusk, who had only become GM a couple of years before that renovation began. “[The lower level] was always [the building’s] red-headed stepchild.”

Bottom-Up Revival

January of this year, however, marked the dawning of a new era at Maplewood, in more ways than one. As soon as the club began its 100th year, transformation of its lower level began at a furious pace. And after just a little more than three months of round-the-clock renovation work, Maplewood reopened the lower level of its clubhouse to its 350 members—who all reopened their mouths to express amazement at the change they saw.

“One member walked in and said, ‘This looks like a restaurant now!’ ” Lusk says. “And that was exactly what we were after. We didn’t just want to redo our basement; we wanted to turn it into the feeling of a restaurant that was divided up into three informal dining areas.

“The goal was to give everyone who came in the door a choice, based on who they were with at that time, and what they might feel like having,” Lusk adds. “If they’re with their kids, they can turn one way, to go the area with our new brick oven, where we’re now making pizzas plus a lot of other popular items. If they want to join friends, they can go to the new lounge area in the back, where we now have a by-the-glass wine system and a special bar menu featuring great items like lobster sliders. If they want a quieter sit-down dinner, there’s the member dining section in front, with the regular a la carte menu.

“We actually ended up making a better connection [between the space and] our outside patio, too, because we had to make new windows to get the pizza oven in,” Lusk adds.

“So when the weather’s nice, that’s become another [dining] option for the people who come down [to the lower level]. I don’t know of too many country clubs where you can offer that many different choices in such a small area—and especially on the bottom floor.”

Money In the Bank

Maplewood CC also showed some notable resourcefulness and creativity in how it went about funding its new-look lower level. The club has always had a strong catering operation,  earning regional “Best Wedding Venue” recognition from The Knot (a bridal website/publication) and also doing brisk business in Bar/Bat Mitvahs and other outings. In total, some 140 events a year have helped the club build up a 70-30 F&B percentage breakdown in favor of the more profitable catering side, versus a la carte.

With this kind of steady earning power at hand, Lusk and Darlene Lowman, the club’s Controller/CFO, have made it a long-standing practice to put set-asides from each catering job into a designated “refurbishing” account for F&B-related projects. This made it possible to use money that was already in the bank for much of the $1.1 million needed to upgrade the lower level, and also to avoid having to impose any major capital assessments on members for the project.

With ample cash in hand, the renovation was set in motion in May 2010, with an initial design meeting with Jefferson Group Architects and Judd Brown Designs of Pawtucket, R.I. A design plan was approved by October, and construction got on the fast track as soon as the new year began.

“The general contractor [A. Pigna & Sons of Scotch Plains, N.J.] was great—they got done in three-and-a-half months what we’d planned would take five,” Lusk says. “We gave them a key to the building and they worked seven days a week, pretty much ‘round the clock; I remember one time when they were in here on a weekend to start some sheet-rocking at 10 PM, just as a Bar Mitzvah was ending.”

Wayne Jacques, AIA, President of Jefferson Group Architects, says Lusk’s firm direction of the team also contributed to the impressive production pace. “Michael recognized that the changes that were being made were likely to have a positive impact right away at the club, and he made it clear he wanted to miss as little of the [coming] season as possible,” says Jacques.

From the design firm’s perspective, the challenges came primarily from the height constraints of the lower level, Jacques says. “The rooms are limited by the floor above, with ceilings that are only seven feet, eight inches high,” he notes. “It was definitely claustrophobic and pretty much a non-usable room with the bar positioned as it was, against the wall.

“We put an emphasis on using new materials and colors that would help to create an impression of space,” Jacques says. “The idea of breaking things up by creating the smaller areas within the space also helped; that way, when you do only have five people on that level, it’s not five people in one huge room.”

The renovation emphasized materials and colors that helped overcome the “claustrophobic” feeling caused by the lower level’s low (7’ 8”) ceilings.

There for the Baking

The project’s emphasis on offering a wide variety of high-quality dining options in a casual setting reflects a transformation that Judd Brown, President of Judd Brown Designs, sees taking hold throughout the club industry, as clubs try to compete with the restaurants in their markets. But, he adds, Maplewood is the first club he’s seen go so far as to include a brick, wood-fired oven, like those that many restaurant operations have built a successful business around, as a central part of its new casual format.

From a design standpoint, Brown says, including the oven provided an added opportunity to bring “visual excitement” to the room, which he says is especially important for a lower level with windows on only one side­. The oven is given further emphasis by $8,000 worth of specialty mosaic tile that encases it, in a color range that “suggests flames,” Brown notes.

But while that treatment is certainly eye-catching and adds an especially upscale look to the room,  the stars of this part of the renovated lower level are still clearly the oven itself, and the taste treats that come out of it.

“We never call it a ‘pizza oven,’” Lusk makes clear. “It has push-button controls that can get it quickly fired up to 700°F. We can do a steak at 500°F in 10 minutes.”

And while pizza, including individual pies and breakfast varieties, has certainly been a major and popular part of the equipment’s output, patrons have also been drawn to the clams oreganata, Buffalo wings, salmon on a plank, calzones, chicken giambotta and many other tempting dishes that it has been producing successfully.

When entering the foyer of the club’s lower level, Maplewood CC members now have many choices for where to gather including a new lounge and central bar area.

The draw of the oven, and the entire lower level, in fact, became evident almost immediately after it was reopened, with Friday nights in the early spring quickly yielding over 200 covers from a space that now offers maximum seating for 140 people, including all available barstools.

The “Perfect Storm”

“We’ve come a long way from what was just your typical ‘19th hole’ look, with a couple of TVs and some card tables,” Lusk says. “We knew we had a real challenge, because it’s hard to get people to eat in anything that seems like a basement. But [the project] is really part of a ‘perfect storm’ that came together for us this year, with our centennial and also some new membership promotions we’ve done that have brought in over 65 new members.

“[Maplewood] is getting younger very fast—a lot of those new members are young families, with parents around 40 or 45, and two or three young kids. We had to do things that would make them happy to come here—it can’t just be the husband’s club, the wife and children have to want to stay, too.

“Already, the reaction has been overwhelmingly in favor of what we’ve done,” Lusk says. “It’s clear that everyone at the club was ready for change. We thought that would be the case, but it’s been even better than we anticipated.”

Another timely contribution to the “perfect storm” of conditions, Lusk notes, was the decision of Maplewood’s Board of Governors to relax the club’s dress code to include more “appropriate-looking jeans.”

“They can’t be ripped, or worn with sneakers, and you must have a collared shirt,” Lusk adds. The change has spurred increased activity beyond Maplewood’s new lower level to also include its attractive patio seating areas that run along the golf course, as well as an upstairs reception and bar area that have also been given a much-needed facelift.

Specialty pizzas (including a breakfast variety) are just the start of what’s now being produced in Maplewood’s new wood-burning brick oven.

Overall, the renewed atmosphere of casual dining and dancing that now prevails throughout the club is “drawing more and more younger families and their friends to ‘hang out’ on the upper patio having drinks, and ordering off the bar menu and new pizza menu,” Lusk says. This has already been reflected in a 20% increase in covers, and 15% increase in overall business revenue, for the year.

Lusk doesn’t expect things to show any signs of slowing down as the summer season ends, either—he reports that “members are expressing their anticipation of future use of the new grill room in the winter months, with the fire burning as they enjoy pizza and other items from the oven menu, have drinks, and watch sports and other events on the TV.” Lusk also envisions using the oven to hold cooking classes for kids.

In fact, while the catering side is expected to continue at its high level (and in the process, keep making contributions to the club’s replenishment fund and pay back what was used for the lower-level project), Lusk feels that even stronger growth from a la carte, spurred by all of the new casual dining options now offered, could perhaps start to make that traditional 70-30 breakdown begin to close up a bit in Maplewood CC’s next 100 years.

For most of its first 100 years, Charlotte CC provided exemplary service despite its clubhouse’s limitations. Now it has a building that properly supports its first-class reputation, inside and out.

Recognizing the special nature of the service experience at Charlotte Country Club has always been easy—anyone who comes to the oldest club in North Carolina’s largest city is immediately struck by the genuine and gracious hospitality that is extended to every member and guest.

But recognizing, and fixing, the many challenges that Charlotte CC’s staff had to overcome to provide its exemplary service took a little longer—almost 100 years, in fact.

Long before he became the club’s Chief Executive Officer in 2003, Damon DiOrio, CCM, CCE, first saw the service obstacles and inefficiencies that the club’s staff had to work around while he was employed as a college student in the Charlotte CC clubhouse, which had been built in 1931.

The impediments came in many forms:

• access-related challenges from an inconveniently positioned elevator, narrow corridors, and dark, steep stairways that caused unnecessary steps and congestion for members and staff alike;
• back-of-the-house barriers, including a poorly planned loading dock area, virtually nonexistent storage, and a total of seven different elevation changes when navigating employee areas. Collectively, these issues had led many vendors to drop Charlotte CC as a customer, because of the difficulties involved with making deliveries to the club;
• employee comfort issues, caused by leaks and odors from the roof and plumbing lines, cramped offices, outdated equipment in kitchens and other areas, employee “break” rooms and bathrooms that were really just broom and water closets, and musty and moldy walls and floors throughout the building. All of these combined to continually try the patience and sap the energy of even the most enthusiastic employees;
• most troubling of all, there were the structural problems that raised real questions about whether Charlotte CC’s clubhouse would soon fall in on itself:

• a water-cooling system that met only 40% of total cooling needs and had to be supplemented by rented portable air-conditioning units to make the Charlotte summers bearable;
• an old boiler, in the center of a frequently flooded basement, that posed a clear fire hazard;
• ductwork coated with inches of built-up dust and mold;
• out-of-code electrical fixtures and wiring;
• corroded pipes that had lost over half their capacity;
• crumbling roof and ceiling material that had led to leaks being experienced in every room of the clubhouse (in the Men’s Card Room, the “fix” was to put a metal pan in the ceiling that was then drained outside with a garden hose);
• rapidly advancing deterioration within the jumble of wood frames, brick, steel, structural tile, hollow terracotta and concrete blocks that, after a series of haphazard building modifications over the year, now comprised the building’s walls and “support” structures.

A Race Against Borrowed Time

Warm rooms and views now fit with the inviting feeling always offered by the exterior of Charlotte CC’s clubhouse, and by the club’s staff.

But even while saddled with these infrastructure burdens, Charlotte CC had not only survived, but grown and prospered through the years—a testament to its solid service tradition that DiOrio, who had come back to the club and worked his way up through several management positions after finishing college and then working for the Disney organization, took to an even higher level as its CEO (see “How Charlotte CC Stand Out From the Crowd?” C&RB, September 2005).

And because the club’s classic, colonnaded exterior had always stayed in good enough shape to still stand, like a Hollywood-lot front, and belie the barely functioning shell behind it, members weren’t aware of how badly neglected the unseen parts of the building had become, or of how much extra effort the staff was having to expend to continue to do their jobs so well.

DiOrio knew, however, that he, his staff, the clubhouse and the club were all on borrowed and rapidly vanishing time. With Charlotte CC’s 100th anniversary set to arrive in 2010, he also knew his most important executive decision as CEO would be to immediately start a process to not only rescue the building and upgrade its functionality, but also to position the club so it could continue to thrive in its second century.

The fully renovated men’s locker room now features a lounge area and bar that has become a popular gathering place and strong new revenue producer for the club.

“When our clubhouse opened in 1931, the club generated $121,000 in annual revenue and employed 42 staff members,” DiOrio says. “Over seventy years later, the same building, in much worse shape after decades of deferred maintenance, was the base for an $11 million operation with 220 employees.

“There had been dozens of clubhouse ‘renovation’ projects over the years,” DiOrio adds, “but they were all piecemeal and patchwork efforts, without much thought given to documentation or coordination. Prior to 2003, Charlotte Country Club had never had a long-range, strategic capital plan.”

Partners and Participants

For outside expertise that could help him put together such a plan and then set it in motion, DiOrio turned to Baltimore-based Chambers. The firm is well-known for its architectural and design work in the private club market, but DiOrio wanted Chambers to serve as a full partner, with a role that would also include formulating and facilitating a master plan, financial modeling, membership communications through town-hall meetings, and conducting the interviewing and selection process for the project architect, contractor, construction supervisor and other team members.

Wider corridors and stairwells have greatly improved accessibility for both members and staff.

DiOrio and Chambers then worked with a task force created by Charlotte CC’s Board of Governors to begin a comprehensive review of the club’s facilities, including engineering studies of the clubhouse’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. A new planning committee used the results of that review, and input from a 2005 member survey, to begin to develop the master plan.

As the plan took shape, Charlotte CC’s members fueled its momentum through active participation and support—especially as they became more aware, after taking behind-the-scenes clubhouse tours and seeing what the engineering studies revealed, of just how precarious the situation had become.

While the club’s by-laws do not require membership approval for capital expenditures, polls taken as the master plan unfolded showed that 90% of Charlotte CC’s members endorsed what grew to be a $32.4 million project. Just as significantly, over 70% provided input to surveys that helped shape the plan’s direction and specific components, and nearly a quarter of the club’s 1,020 members got actively involved on project-related committees or focus groups.

Damon DiOrio, CCM, CCE, Chief Executive Officer

The first results from the master plan (which, beyond the clubhouse and golf course, also included improvements to the club’s golf practice facilities, greeting center, and separate youth activities center and boys/girls locker rooms) were unveiled with the 2007 restoration by Ron Prichard of Charlotte CC’s Donald Ross course.

Attention then turned to the clubhouse, which would be kept open as construction was completed in phases on its three levels. While the reconstruction aspects proved even more formidable than anticipated as the work began—over 30,000 lbs. of steel were needed just to provide enough temporary load support for the badly weakened structure—this was always as much of a restoration as a renovation. As the dozens of coats of paint and other cover-ups and temporary fixes that had been applied over the years were stripped away, specialized craftsmen and artisans were brought in to help properly restore the original moldings and millwork, chandeliers, murals, antique furniture and other priceless pieces so they could all once again be a full, unhidden part of Charlotte CC’s special history and grandeur.

At the same time, no attention to detail was spared as the project incorporated many new features and improvements—extra service closets, audio/visual touchpanels, centralized climate controls—that could now properly complement and assist the staff’s service mission. “This project was as much about creating the right operational efficiencies, and providing the tools and abilities needed to provide a first-class service experience, as it was about restoring our treasured clubhouse,” DiOrio says.

Six years before Charlotte CC’s 100th anniversary, Chief Executive Officer Damon DiOrio set a master plan in motion to ensure that not only the historic clubhouse and golf course, but the club itself, would be properly positioned to continue to thrive in its second century.

Charlotte CC’s members have many new features of their own to enjoy in the clubhouse as a result of the project, such as the new lounge area with staffed bar in the men’s locker room that quickly proved to be immensely popular and a source of significant new food-and-beverage revenues. But another key goal, DiOrio says, was to not have the project overwhelm members with a lot of new things to get used to.

“We didn’t want them to feel they had walked into a new club,” he says, “If that had been the case, the project would have failed. Instead, we wanted members to come in and immediately feel happy that they had their same club back, better than ever, and ready for them and their families to use and enjoy for many more generations.”

Success By All Measures

Since the restoration work was finished right before Thanksgiving 2009, DiOrio says, the club has already seen encouraging results both in operational savings (energy costs down 18%, significant reduction in food costs) and revenue enhancements (casual dining up 19%). He is just as pleased that his staff is now “consistently hitting” service measures, such as 12-minute food-ticket times, that were much harder to achieve around the pre-restoration obstacles.

Curved banquettes that can be used with tables set up for either four or eight have become a popular central feature of the club’s renovated Dogwood Room.

But this certainly shouldn’t be surprising, given Charlotte CC’s history of delivering service excellence, regardless of the conditions. Even amid all of the construction, reports Rick Snellinger, CEO of Chambers, Charlotte CC took the time, after work on the upper level had been completed, to “do something that’s never happened in any project I’ve ever worked on.

“All of the professional companies involved with the project were invited, with guests, for an incredible wine dinner, so we could show our spouses what we’d been working on,” Snellinger reports. “At the end of the dinner, the spotlights came on, the staff and kitchen help came out, and they applauded us.

“It was an experience that raised the hair on the back of your neck,” he says. “And then after we finished the lower level, they did the same thing for us again.”

Once again proving that recognizing what’s special about the service at Charlotte CC has never been difficult—and now it will be easier than ever to spot, for the next hundred or so years.

After years of debate, the members of Navesink CC came to realize they really liked what they already had—they just needed to add more to its existing charm.

Part of the appeal of living in a grand old house is co-existing with its “charm” and recognizing that while there may be a creak here and a leak there, those are acceptable tradeoffs for enjoying the atmosphere of one of those places “they just don’t make like this anymore.”

PROJECT SUMMARY Club: Navesink Country Club Location: Middletown, N.J. Master Planning: Chambers Architect/Interior Design: Chambers Contractor: Ehret Construction Clubhouse Size: 63,000 sq. ft. (expanded existing building from 47,000 sq. ft.) Project Cost: $10.8 million Construction Dates: February 2009-May 2010 Project Highlights: • Renovation/buildout of existing clubhouse preserved appeal of 100-year-old structure while improving overall functionality and adding new amenities • Unique hockey/skating rink and adjacent room turned into year-round asset Click here to see more floor plans here

But there can come a time when “charm” gives way to the threat of real, and expensive, harm—and the history of a structure can become more of a liability for comfortable living, rather than something to love and embrace.

Three years ago, this was proving to be especially true in the case of a nearly 100-year-old, sprawling four-story structure that had become a second home for the 400-plus families holding some level of membership in Navesink Country Club. While the club itself only dates to 1963, its founders created an instant legacy when they carved a golf course out of more than 100 scenic acres amid horse farms in Middletown, N.J., across the Navesink River from the central New Jersey town of Red Bank—and turned a country estate that had been acquired as part of the initial land deal, and sat on a hill with a great view of the river, into Navesink’s first clubhouse.

The house, which dated to 1908, could trace its roots to the family of Abraham Rycken, one of the original Dutch settlers of New York and for whom the infamous Rikers Island (now home to the city’s largest prison complex) is thought to be named. As a private residence, the house boasted no less than twelve master bedrooms, twelve baths, eleven servants’ bedrooms, a squash court, gardener’s cottage, six-car garage with chauffeur’s apartment, horse stable, greenhouse “and other necessary outbuildings,” according to a real estate listing that billed it as “one of New Jersey’s finest estates.”

In a history of Navesink Country Club prepared in 1986, the house was described as “a mix of Italianate, French and Georgian detail: hip roof and dormers, wide bracketed cornices, symmetric stucco facade, and doric-columned portico.

“But [the house spoke] more of an era than an architect,” the history continued. “It had the substantial air of a summer home built to shelter not only the owner’s family and servants, but the support system for house guests.”

The flexibility of folding doors installed between the club’s new grille room and an expanded event terrace overlooking the golf course has proved to be an especially appreciated feature.

Substantial Dilemma
After it was acquired by the founders of Navesink CC, that “substantial air” translated quickly and quite well to turn the old house into an excellent support system for a new and thriving private club. A series of enhancements and expansions were made to provide needed and desired amenities, including the construction of a hockey/skating rink between the golf course and the back of the clubhouse that gave the club a unique appeal and kept it open and active during the winter months.

But over time, the converted summer estate house began to show the strain of  hosting year-round activity for so many   permanent guests. As early as 1990, serious discussions began, and plans were drawn, to address the rapidly advancing need for the major changes—both physical and functional—that would be required to take the sagging structure, which had now swelled to 47,000 square feet, into the next era of the club’s life.

By 2005, a survey showed things had reached a tipping point, when all of these desired improvements were identified by more than 50% of the membership:

• Outdoor dining with better patio view
• Better screening of trash/delivery area
• Creation of casual mixed grille
• Covered dropoff at clubhouse entrance
• Improved general interior decor
• Upgraded clubhouse entrance
• Improved safety of entrance drive
• Improved handicapped accessibility

The Navesink management team (from left: Steve Sieg, Director of Golf; Jeff Mellott, CCM, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer; Nick Ventura, Food and Service Manager; and John Murphy, Executive Chef) now have a properly functioning setting for the services they and their staffs provide to club members.

That prompted the club’s leadership to engage Chambers, the Baltimore-based architectural and design firm, to help Navesink finally put into motion, and pursue in earnest, the process that would lead to the right solution for not only properly upgrading its clubhouse, but also positioning the club for its next generations of existence.

By 2007, Chambers had helped the club’s Building Renovation Committee prepare and present three options to the membership:

1) Make the improvements most needed to salvage the club’s infrastructure (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) and address the most glaring aesthetic issues (service delivery appearance, leaks and water damage from the outside terrace, and other exterior improvements), at an estimated cost of $3 million.
2) Undertake a comprehensive renovation and expansion (to 63,000 square feet) of the existing clubhouse that would restore and retain its original charms while adding newly needed functionality and amenities, at an estimated cost of $10 million.
3) Recognize that the grand old house had seen its day and replace it with an all-new, 50,000-sq. ft. clubhouse that would cost between $15-$18 million.

As these options were debated, it became clear that the membership was finally ready to move beyond stop-gap strategies like option 1)—but that the choice between 2) and 3) hinged largely on the question of what should be done with Navesink’s hockey rink.

Some felt the rink’s existing location, and its undesirable appearance when not in use during the summer, stood in the way of building an up-to-date, more functional clubhouse that could offer a better connection with the golf course. But others saw hockey and skating as a special part of Navesink that not only shouldn’t be jeopardized by new construction, but could be enhanced through renovation of the existing structure.

“We never before had a casual bar or areas for socializing informally,” says Navesink’s GM/COO, Jeff Mellott.

In the end, a key to selling the membership on the second option was a digital photo rendering that showed how the rink could be disassembled (with the boards stored in new space created by the expansion), and how its surface could be covered with a synthetic turf to allow it to blend in and actually enhance the views, especially after new rooms and terraces would bring more clubhouse activities closer to the golf course.

“The membership came to recognize that the rink provides an incredible amenity for their club, and they really didn’t want to risk disrupting what they already had in place,” says Rick Snellinger, President/CEO of Chambers. “[The rink and related winter programs] create offseason energy and revenues that you generally don’t have in the Northeast. They also serve as a valuable member recruitment tool and feeder system that attract people who start as sports members and eventually upgrade to full memberships.

“Relocating or building a new rink, so the clubhouse would be closer to the golf course, wouldn’t have been worth losing those benefits—plus, it would have added another $2 million or so in incremental expenses,” Snellinger notes.

The picture that members saw of how the rink could not only be kept in place,  but prettied up for the months when it wasn’t being used, was clearly worth a lot of votes—eventually, 88% of Navesink’s membership approved the option to proceed with a renovation and expansion of their existing clubhouse.

The project was finished this past Memorial Day and a grand “throwback”reopening celebration, featuring menus and prices from Navesink’s original opening in 1963,  was held in early June.

Already, while still working through the last items on the project punch list, General Manager & Chief Operating Officer Jeff Mellott, CCM, has seen plenty of evidence to convince him that finding a way to not only preserve, but improve, the structure and activities that have always made Navesink unique was the right way to go.

A new lower-level covered terrace outside a renovated activities lounge has helped to update the old house and connect it with the club’s golf course and grounds.

“At other clubs I couldn’t drag people in for formal dining, but now that we’re providing a proper venue for it here, covers are up to the point that we’re already thinking about adding more nights for it,” Mellott reports. “On the lower level, the improvements to the room off the hockey rink is already proving to be a fantastic event venue and ‘bonus space’ that we think will be in demand, year-round, for both adult and kids activities.

“We had to address the clubhouse issues to stay competitive,” says Mellott, who came to Navesink in 2007. “We always had great amenities, but just couldn’t provide them in an efficient and functional way.

“Now, the building looks, and works, great—for the staff, and for the members. And what we’ve done to give ourselves new life is also stimulating new-member interest.”

The original vision for a 40-year-old clubhouse is recaptured- and with a distinctive look, and better fit with today’s club scene, emerges.

Frank Lloyd Wright is known as the greatest American architect (a title officially conferred on him in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects) not only because of his innovative designs, but also because his concepts were applied so successfully to a wide range of buildings—including colleges, churches, museums, high-rise office towers and even gas stations, as well as private residences.

Country clubs also figured prominently in Wright’s prolific body of work (which totaled over 1,000 projects designed and more than 500 completed buildings). He designed several golf, yacht and tennis clubs in Illinois, and one of his designs, originally commissioned as a house in Connecticut for Marilyn Monroe and playwright Arthur Miller, was eventually used as the basis for the clubhouse of an exclusive golf club in Hawaii.

Today, 50 years after Wright’s death, country clubs have emerged as one of the best potential environments for continuing to apply his timeless concepts. Wright’s trademark emphasis on clean lines and open, comfortable and functional space is proving to be a perfect fit with the drive of many clubs to update their facilities and make them speak more invitingly as casual, family-friendly locations.

A New Life at 50
One of the most striking examples of how a Wright-inspired design can be in step with this new emphasis can be found in Bridgewater, N.J., where the members of Raritan Valley Country Club are now enjoying an expanded clubhouse building that was reopened this past June after extensive renovations to both its exterior and interior.

Coincidentally, the Raritan Valley CC clubhouse had first been built in 1959, the year of Wright’s death. And it is clear that its original design—featuring low rooflines, cantilevered support columns and an emphasis on horizontal sightlines and natural light—drew strong inspiration from Wright’s architectural influence in that period.

But in subsequent years, much of that connection—and distinction—was lost, especially after a remodeling in 1989. The replacement of original materials and furnishings over time was not carried out in a fashion that was consistent with, or true to, the original, Wright-inspired look and functionality of the building.

As the clubhouse neared its 50th year and the club (founded in 1911) approached its 100th, “everything looked dated and out-of-style, inside and out,” reports Alexander Mueller, the club’s General Manager. It was clear, Mueller adds, that “[the club] needed a fresher, more contemporary and friendlier look.”

Original Views
To accomplish that goal, while also expanding the clubhouse from 25,000 to 32,000 sq. ft. to create needed space both for regular dining and special events, Raritan Valley CC turned to Judd Brown Designs of Pawtucket, R.I. and its sister firm, Jefferson Group Architects.

The renovation expanded the capacity of Raritan Valley CC’s casual dining and bar areas, to help adapt to trends that have emerged as the club’s average member age has been lowered.

After taking a look at what was under the hood of the existing building, it became clear to the project’s design team, led by Senior Designer Kevin O’Brien and Senior Project Manager Mark Palazio, that it still had powerful potential, and that many of the answers lay in going back to what inspired the original clubhouse design.

“The architecture of the existing building necessitated a complete overhaul and return to the design elements that were architecturally more consistent with the shapes, volumes and forms of the building’s shell,” a project summary explains. “The multi-level facade, with its low, horizontal forms, prominent roofline and deep eaves, required a departure from the faux-Colonial motifs that had been implemented over the years.”

In what almost sounds like a séance that was held to raise the spirit of the architectural giant, the summary then describes how the project team “summoned an architectural language inspired by the design lexicon of Frank Lloyd Wright, and graced the building with modernized, Craftsman-style details that truly distinguish it from an expected country club style.

“On an interior level,” the summary continues, “the designers decided the space should reflect a floor plan and level of finish that was consistent with a contemporary, resort hotel setting. The gracious lobby, handsomely appointed corridors, banquet spaces, three distinct dining venues and enhanced golf retail space [were all designed to] provide a level of flexibility that reflects dominant trends in the club industry and the changing expectations of country club membership.”

Exterior enhancements made to both the entrance and back of the building have also helped to bring the special characteristics of the original design back to life.

“Members’ and visiting guests’ first impression of the entrance and porte cochère is now gracious and refined,” says the summary. “And the view of the clubhouse from the 18th fairway, once fairly drab and unimpressive, is now a source of pride for the membership, with its handsome, stacked-stone-and-wood facade [and] expansive outdoor dining terrace.”

A Whole New Scene in Between
While leading a tour through the rooms of the renovated building, Mueller reports that Raritan Valley’s members (260 proprietary, plus another 70 house members) have been expressing many favorable impressions as well about what now exists between the clubhouse entrance and the outdoor terrace.

“Over and over, I hear people say—and show by their [increased] presence—that they now want to use the club more often,” reports Mueller. “It’s clear they now think that overall, it’s a nicer, more inviting place to come to eat or to entertain. The number of meals we’re serving has nearly doubled since we’ve reopened, and many members now say they’re considering having a party or wedding here, but wouldn’t have before.

“Getting rid of the heavy drapes and the older feel they created, and going to a more contemporary, open look, has made a huge difference,” Mueller adds. “We’re also getting good response—and use—of new private dining and meeting rooms that we created as part of the expansion. The businessmen [among the membership] really see those as positive new features, because they now have a special, quiet place to entertain and impress clients. [The private rooms] have also been a good addition for the wine cellaring program we started a few years ago, because we can now also use them for wine dinners.”

The views from every end of the expanded and renovated Raritan Valley CC clubhouse are now much more pleasing—and populated.

Operationally, Mueller, who has been the club’s General Manager for the past two years after previously serving as its Clubhouse Manager, appreciates the added flexibility that was built into the renovation plan, because it helps his staff respond to how members now want to use the club.

“We’ve easily doubled the capacity of our Valley Club Room grill and bar areas, and that’s been vital in helping us keep up with the trend [to more casual dining], as our average member age has become lower,” Mueller notes. “Our Players Pub bar can be set up so we can have two different groups use it at one time if needed, with a buffet in the middle.”

The expanded patio area off the ballroom (which was renovated first, as Phase One of the project) has also put the club in better position to handle larger events—“an especially important consideration as it looks ahead to the anticipated schedule for its 100th anniversary celebration in 2011.

“And now the people attending the functions in the ballroom and out on the patio are able to come in and out without disturbing those in the main dining room or other rooms of the clubhouse,” Mueller notes, citing the improved flow created by the new layout.

“Overall, [the renovated building] really lends itself to versatility and is much more functional,” he says.

Behind the scenes, Mueller says the Raritan Valley CC staff has also benefited from the creation of extra “cavities,” as part of the expanded space, that are now being used for more on-site, in-clubhouse storage—and in the process, creating new back-of-the-house efficiencies.

“We used to have two storage trailers on the property and have been able to get rid of one,” he reports. “We have a better setup for deliveries and better organization of supplies, with things like a dedicated soda room and defined cubbies for paper goods, maintenance products, and all of our china and glass.”

Getting the Go-Ahead
When the Raritan Valley CC membership was asked in 2007 to approve the renovation plan, the economy was starting to show signs of shakiness—especially within the financial sector that is so closely tied to the fortunes of northern New Jersey. And the approval would not come without a price for the club’s individual members, who would be asked to shoulder a three-year assessment to help cover the costs.

Still, the plan passed with 87% approval—in part, Mueller says, because the assessment was made more palatable by a stipulation that it would be applied to members’ bonds. But the strong mandate was due as well to a pervasive belief that the expansion and upgrade were vital to ensuring the club’s long-term success well beyond its pending 100th anniversary.

Still, as the renovation proceeded, Raritan Valley did not prove immune to the membership and operating pressures that hit all private clubs as the economy continued to head south.

“We had 40 members take a leave of absence [during the renovation period], and we also closed for an additional month this past winter beyond our normal offseason,” Mueller says. “But already, because of how our facilities have been refreshed, we know that half [of those taking a leave] plan to return.

“At the same time, the buzz about what we’ve done here has created a lot of interest from prospective new members,” he adds. “Many of them, after seeing the new building, decided to become part of a new provisional program that allows them to try out the club [before committing].

“And based on how they’ve reacted as they’ve used it, we feel confident that we’re going to see many of them become new members next year, too.”

“Burnt orange” stone, cowhide seats and Longhorn butter pats are just some of the special touches that help the University of Texas Golf Club’s new clubhouse complete the creation of a spirited and distinctive property.

On the day after Christmas in 2007, workers returned from a holiday break to begin the final month of construction for the new clubhouse at the University of Texas (UT) Golf Club in Austin. But on that first day back, a worker’s torch accidentally set the roof deck and surrounding wood trusses on fire. Winds that were gusting up to 35 miles per hour drove the flames down to the attic and into the nearly finished structure; the sprinkler system, while already installed, had not yet been hooked up to the main line.

A video taken by a nearby homeowner and posted on YouTube captured the rest of the drama, as the raging fire soon gutted most of what had been built to that point. One viewer was moved to post an online comment: “At least the flames were orange, not maroon.”

That comment—a reference not only to the signature “burnt orange“ colors of the University of Texas Longhorns, but also the maroon of the rival Texas A&M Aggies and Oklahoma Sooners—reflected the special passions that the developers of the UT Golf Club have been appealing to since the club first opened in 2003. And the story of how the new clubhouse was quickly rebuilt after the fire, and now serves as a centerpiece of lively activity for its membership, speaks volumes about how sound their strategy has been and how solidly their plans have been executed, even when pushed to the most extreme tests.

More Than a Good Place for Water
Building a club around a university with a rich golfing tradition and links to names such as Harvey Penick, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite and Justin Leonard would seem to be a natural. But it didn’t take shape that way from the start. The roots of the idea extend to the late 1990s, when Taylor Woodrow Communities, known for successfully combining golf courses and clubs with master-planned developments in Florida and other areas, was looking to do the same with the Steiner Ranch property in Austin, in which it had acquired a controlling interest.

Tied to a name that has been famous in central Texas for generations, through its connection to championship rodeo and cattle-raising, Steiner Ranch is only a half-hour from downtown Austin and the main UT campus, on the edge of the area’s “hill country,” overlooking Lake Austin and bordering the Balcones Natural Wildlife Preserve.

A month short of its original completion date, fire gutted the new clubhouse. But it was quickly rebuilt with only “minor tweaks” needed to the original plan.

Taylor Woodrow knew a golf course carved into the scenic terrain would be a natural enhancement to its real-estate development plans. But originally, says Robert Long, Director of Development for the company’s Taylor Morrison of Texas division, “we were thinking about a daily-fee course that would be a good way to make use of reclaimed water from [the development’s] treatment plant.”

A search for a partner with course development expertise led Taylor Woodrow to Mike A. Myers, a Dallas banker who had founded golf clubs in other Texas cities. As a UT alum and major booster of Longhorn athletics (the track and soccer stadium bears his name), Myers saw the potential for taking full advantage of the property’s proximity to the school. Soon a licensing agreement was worked out that would give the new club full use of the UT logo and brand, while the university in general, and its men’s and women’s golf teams in particular, could benefit from exclusive access to brand-new facilities.

The partnership, which was expanded to include Bill Duvall, President of Lincoln Property Co., then began to map out just what those facilities should include. Phase one was built around constructing the course; Bechtol Russell Golf Design—headed by Randy Russell and Roy Bechtol, a UT alum whose father Hub was a legendary All-American football player for the Longhorns—was the natural choice to design what opened in 2003 as a 7,154-yard layout.

To complement the course, a small structure to house a snack bar and pro shop was also built. And funds raised through a series of pro-am tournaments were used to create a separate and impressive new facility for the UT golf teams that was eventually expanded into a state-of-the-art instructional Golf Academy.

From the moment the new club opened, though, there were unmistakable signs that the concept could grow legs as powerful as a Longhorn fullback. Strong interest in being part of something tied to the university quickly brought the membership ranks close to the originally envisioned cap of around 800 (there are currently 430 local and 300 regional members). Golf activity rapidly accelerated to its current annual pace of 28,000 rounds. And UT-branded merchandise was not only flying out of the pro shop, it was also proving to be quite an online draw (annual sales now approach $800,000, with $75,000 coming through the club’s Web site).

Members were also showing a strong inclination to stay on the property to enjoy food and drinks, even though foodservice capabilities were quite limited and the best available seating area was an open-air banquet pavilion that didn’t exactly offer year-round, climate-controlled comfort, especially for Austin’s triple-digit summer days.

All of these developments made it clear the club was growing up fast enough to already prepare for the next phase. In addition to proceeding with a renovation that added a seventh set of tees and lengthened the golf course to over 7,400 yards in 2007, the club set plans in motion to have a new clubhouse ready for its fifth anniversary in 2008.

Small Feet and High Ceilings 
But while the numbers made a good case for why a considerably larger new clubhouse might be needed, Steve Termeer, the UT Golf Club’s General Manager/Director of Golf, kept hearing a “been there, done that” message in the back of his mind that urged him to take a different approach. “I’ve worked at clubs with the 60,000-square-foot buildings,”  Termeer says. “They just present a lot of potential headaches, first in building them and then operating them, that I didn’t think we wanted or needed to take on.”

Termeer was instead determined to create a space that would fit better with what he describes as the “comfortable but not overbearing” atmosphere that had already emerged as a distinguishing characteristic of the club. That led to the selection of CCI Club Design to draw up plans for a new building that only measures 16,800 square feet but looks, and functions, much larger.

The unique appeal of special touches like cowhide upholstery and signature dishes like “Dirty Martini” mussels have helped to foster near-capacity fun on many nights in the Founder Room bar.

“We needed [a designer] that would take our plan of how the building needed to work and then maximize the space utilization,” says Termeer. “CCI had shown with other projects that it’s very good at that, and in this case I think they may have done their best job ever, by including high ceilings and large windows that flow from one room to the next and help make sure nothing feels crowded.

“There is a actually ton of mass in the building—from one point, it measures 53 feet from the floor to the top of a chimney,” Termeer adds. “That’s pretty unique for what is still really a single-story structure.”

Other keys to having the building “read a lot bigger than it really is,” adds Ryan Yakel, CCI’s Executive Vice President/COO, included making the connecting corridors feel like “extensions of the rooms,” with custom-designed cases inset into the walls to house memorabilia not only from the UT athletic programs, but also the Steiner family’s colorful history. “Your focus isn’t on being in a hallway, but on looking at what’s in the trophy cases,” Yakel notes.

Even when the fire offered an opportunity to take a mulligan on the original plan and add more space, Termeer says the club could already see that the existing floor plan was going to work quite well. In fact, the only “minor tweaks” made the second time around, he says, were adjustments such as increasing doorway header heights, enlarging windows, and raising roof heights to further enhance the feeling of openness and take even better advantage of the great views taking shape from the various rooms.

The club also used the do-over to double the back patio space it had originally planned, because of the potential it now saw for how the new clubhouse could connect with the golf course.

General Manager/ Director of Golf Steve Termeer knows that while a golf course can be a good place to be alone, F&B settings are not—so the UT Golf Club now provides the right mix of uncrowded comfort, both inside and out.

“We didn’t design it this way,” Termeer reveals, “but we discovered as we built the main dining room that it has places where, from the proper angle, you can now see all six firepits that are outside in various spots around the 18th green. At night, that’s a pretty cool sight.”

Entirely Different Approaches
While his background is in golf (he was named the number-one high school player in the U.S. in 1986 and then played for UT), Termeer has learned as a club manager that there is another good reason to avoid creating cavernous spaces in a clubhouse.

“On the golf course, people like being by themselves,” he says. “But it’s completely different with food and beverage service—you don’t want to feel alone. And this is especially true, I think, in a club such as ours, where the average member age is 41 and there’s a lot of naturally kindred spirit and enthusiasm.” (While the club welcomes Aggies, Sooners and alums of all schools, 70% of the members are UT graduates.)

Post-fire adjustments that included raising the roof level, enlarging the windows and expanding the patio space have helped to enhance the Tower Room grill’s connection with the golf course.

That enthusiasm has been evident from the day the new clubhouse was finally completed—and was immediately put to the test. After a rebuilding that took just 10 months, 1,700 people came to the grand opening on the last weekend of October 2008. “It didn’t feel crowded at all,” Termeer reports.

Since then, the building has seen steady activity in both its Founder Room bar and Tower Room grill, which are separated by a sliding door. Each room also has easy access to ample outdoor patio space.

Driven by the appeal of “Dirty Martini” Mussels, house-made fries and other signature specialties of Executive Chef Wayne Brooks and his staff, traffic in the bar now frequently swells to near-capacity, Termeer reports. But the flexibility in how the clubhouse floor space was designed has made it possible to go with the traffic flows as they develop.

Overall, Termeer projects first-year revenues for F&B of at least $1.3 million. And while about two-thirds of that is now generated by a la carte sales, he doesn’t think achieving a more balanced mix with banquet sales will take long; bookings for receptions are now coming in quickly, he reports, as word circulates about the special fun that can now be experienced on this part of Steiner Ranch.

Cows Are the Butter
And make no mistake—while the UT Golf Club succeeded in conserving on actual square footage space in its new clubhouse, it didn’t certainly skimp on the details that now help to position it as a unique venue and brand. Whether it’s from the “burnt orange” mud vein that was used to give the clubhouse’s limestone walls a distinctive hue, or the heavy timber fir trusses and other “Austin feel” elements, or just the cowhide-backed seats in the bar and the butter pats embossed with the Longhorn logo, the connection with the University and its brand can’t be missed—and nothing but a good impression can be drawn.

“The partners have been great in allowing us to pay attention to every detail and to always do so in a way that projects the highest quality, without being overly grand,” says Termeer. “We never had concerns raised about the cost per square foot, even after the fire. And even with having to overcome that little ‘challenge,’ it’s still turned out to be a winner for everyone involved.”

Opened almost exactly two years after a devastating fire, Inverness CC’s new clubhouse has sizzled from the start with “home-style” activity.

Architects accept, and often encourage, the notion of “starting with a blank slate” or “going back to the drawing board” as part of any design project.

But when Rick Snellinger, President/CEO of Baltimore-based Chambers, made a return trip to Birmingham, Ala. in June 2007, to continue discussions on a clubhouse renovation at Inverness Country Club, he was surprised to discover that a blank slate—or more precisely, a blank foundation slab—was literally where he’d have to start.

PROJECT SUMMARY • Club: Inverness Country Club Location: Birmingham, Ala. Architect: Chambers Interior Design: Chambers Contractor: Rives Construction Fitness: Club Industry Consulting Clubhouse Size: 24,000 sq. ft. Construction Dates: May 2008 to June 2009 Project Highlights:• “Casual and friendly elegance” creates “comforts of home” • Back-of-the-house operations designed to be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible to members and guests View photos of the new clubhouse at Inverness Country Club here.

Snellinger had held an initial meeting a week earlier with Bill Ochsenhirt, the club’s co-owner and General Manager. When he came back to Birmingham to present preliminary concepts of how the clubhouse could be redesigned, he drove up to the Inverness parking lot, only to find that the existing building had burned completely to the ground. The fire had occurred two days earlier, and in the heat of scrambling to start the recovery process (“Inverness CC Rises from the Ashes,” C&RB, December 2007), Ochsenhirt had understandably not yet been able to inform some people, including Snellinger, of what happened.

A little over two years later, though, the word was widespread that a new clubhouse at Inverness was ready to be unveiled, and over 800 members and guests drove up to the same, now slightly expanded parking lot area to attend an open house on July 2, 2009.

The parade hasn’t stopped since, as the club’s membership has clearly taken to the many new features and comforts that emerged from the “blank slab” approach. “[Members] are enjoying things like the rocking chairs on our new patio so much, they’re staying a lot later at night than we’ve ever needed to have staff here before,” Ochsenhirt reports. “But that’s certainly a nice ‘problem’ to have.”

All Part of the Plan
Creating a new clubhouse environment that members would embrace as every bit as appealing as home was a primary goal of the new master plan put together by Ochsenhirt, Chambers and an advisory committee of members after the fire created the opportunity for starting over on the project.

“[The committee] had a good cross-section of ages represented from among the membership,” says Ochsenhirt. “And across the board, everyone said they wanted a clubhouse that was casual and friendly, yet elegant. The descriptions they all gave us for how it should be laid out and decorated,  and how it would function, were very similar to how they described things and spaces they enjoyed in their own homes.”

At 24,000 square feet, the new Inverness clubhouse is nearly 40% larger than its predecessor. But  even with the added space, the overriding goal of providing the intimacy and comforts of home has been achieved through a carefully planned layout of rooms that are sized appropriately, but not overwhelmingly, for their specific functions.

The front entrance and foyer (see photos, opposite page) lead invitingly to several different dining and socializing areas, as well as a full fitness center, pro shop, men’s and women’s locker rooms, outdoor terraces and even a child care center. Moving from room to room is much more reminiscent of walking around a private home than in a traditional club building, as the design throughout emphasizes openness and an abundance of natural light drawn through large picture windows. A number of “conversation areas” are set up around fireplaces or other gathering points in several of the rooms (as well as outdoors), and a minimum of physical barriers are presented by walls or hallways.

Plans were already in the works to replace the original Inverness CC clubhouse (left), which was built in 1973—but then a fire that burned the building to the ground in two hours hastened the need to build anew.

The entrance foyer and dining areas, in fact, are separated only by a “water wall” (with recirculated water running down one side of a large pane of glass) that has proved to be such an eye-catcher, the club has had to post small “please enjoy, but don’t touch” signs near its base.

“The huge clubhouse is a white elephant that just can’t be justified in terms of energy and operating costs any more,” Ochsenhirt believes. “This building is designed to comfortably handle hopefully as many as 1,000 members someday—but in much less space than you’d expect for a club of that size.”

The emphasis on intimacy, openness and flexibility is also evident through the absence of a traditional ballroom. “We certainly want and expect [the new building] to more than double our F&B revenues, and much of those gains will come from events,” Ochsenhirt says.

“But we do not want to get there by becoming a banquet factory. And when you have a room where you can’t change the walls or colors, that’s just a monster waiting to be fed.”

As its alternative concept, Inverness has designed its most formal dining area, the Garden Room, to “feel like a restaurant,” Ochsenhirt says. This is achieved with touches like pendant lighting, and by using banquette seating that offers the flexibility, in combination with padded tables that can be converted to either square or round formats, to quickly adapt to whatever seating arrangements are needed. “If we have a party of six, we don’t have to put two fours together,” notes Ochsenhirt.

The new clubhouse was moved back closer to the golf course, partly to increase available parking in the front but more importantly to enhance views and a connection with the course from the rear of the building. A new patio (walled area at far right) has proved to be particularly popular, especially at night.

At the same time, the Garden Room will serve as the club’s primary indoor event venue, as it can be easily transformed, using movable walls, to accommodate groups of 20 or 200. “The planters are all on casters, and we have many different colors of linens available,” says Ochsenhirt, describing just some of the ways the venue has been designed and prepared to provide a maximum level of choice and customization. “Instead of having to say, ‘No, we can’t change the room,’ we want to say, ‘Here’s the space—how would you like us to set it up for your party?’ ”

Out of Sight and Mind
The homey feeling of the new Inverness clubhouse is also enhanced by the great care that was taken, as it was designed, to minimize members’ and guests’ awareness of—or intrusion from—the back-of-the-house requirements of club operations.

“We wanted to make how the club is run as invisible as possible,” Ochsenhirt says. “Nothing is worse than having beer or wine deliveries come through the front door, or band equipment moved through dining or bar areas as members are trying to enjoy the club.

“[The new building] was designed so all mechanical equipment is on the roof and no one will ever have to see it being serviced,” he reports. “All of the deliveries come up a separate road to a separate entrance for the storage areas, which are all on the outer edges of the building. We have double-doors leading to the kitchen so sound and light don’t bleed out, and we painted the walls between the kitchen and service areas black, to kill the light when the doors are opened. In the dining rooms, everything bartenders and servers need is well-hidden from view.”

Members and guests at the front of the house, and staff and service personnel behind the scenes, are also more comfortable moving around the new Inverness clubhouse because it has been confined to one level. The single-floor concept was actually a design adjustment made during the one time that “back to the drawing board” is inevitable for a project: the midstream “correction phase” that always comes after costs begin to escalate beyond the budget.

The original drawings for the Inverness clubhouse called for a building that wouldn’t be much bigger from a square-footage standpoint, but did include a second level and plans for an elevator. “[The original plan] required a lot more site work and excavation, but four months into it, we saw we were going to need to revisit those ideas,” says Ochsenhirt. “But as we value-engineered the original design, I wanted to make sure we didn’t take out things that members would be able to touch and see and feel good about. And we were able to find the [reductions] we needed without cutting back on furnishings or decor or amenities, primarily by redesigning everything as a one-level building.”

Justifying the Costs
Ochsenhirt, who bought Inverness from Metropolitan Life in 2005 and co-owns and operates two other Birmingham-area clubs, prefers not to reveal the final price tag for the Inverness clubhouse. But he does say it represents a “significant investment” over what was reimbursed by insurance after the fire.

“We could have just rebuilt a clubhouse of the same size and style, with no out-of-pocket costs—that would have been the safe bet,” he notes. “But members had been asking for fitness, and outdoor dining, and a nicer bar. Clearly, these were all things that could become important new focal points for the club.

“And the membership gains we kept making while building the new clubhouse [from 500 at the time of the fire to over 800 today], largely on the basis of people hearing about what we were adding, also made it clear that these were the kind of changes we needed to make, if we were to keep winning the ‘family-friendly’ battle,” he adds.

The cost in the end of all this to Inverness members? A $35/month dues increase.

“There was no assessment and it was the first dues increase in three years, even though we’d rebuilt the golf course right before the fire,” says Ochsenhirt. “The reactions we saw as members came into the foyer for the first time at the open house—and how they’ve continued to come back and fill up the fitness room and dining rooms and bars ever since—tell me we made the right decisions and that people feel it’s well worth it. It’s clear that everyone’s very proud of what the club has now become.“

Thanks to an inspired mix of vision, form and function, the new Beach Club at John’s Island Club has quickly come to life-and stayed active almost ’round the clock.

A lot of sad words are being written this spring about Vero Beach, Fla. For the first time in 61 years, the Los Angeles Dodgers, like the Brooklyn Dodgers before them, didn’t come to Vero to get ready for the upcoming baseball season, abandoning their famous “Dodgertown” training facility for a new complex in Arizona. In the Dodgers’ absence,   sportswriters from around the country have been visiting Vero and writing plaintively about how this latest loss of baseball tradition has caused an “eery quiet” to come over the town.

These writers clearly haven’t had their ears, or eyes, open very wide while surveying the scene, however. While the sound of bats hitting balls may be harder to hear, in another part of town there’s an impressive amount of new activity that’s actually making Vero Beach a more lively spot than ever.

PROJECT SUMMARY Club: The Beach Club at John’s Island Club Location: Vero Beach, Fla. Architect: Peacock + Lewis Architects and Planners, Inc. (www.peacockandlewis.com) Interior Design: J. Banks Design Group Contractor: Weitz Golf Intl. (www.weitzgolf.com) Clubhouse Size: 42,000 sq. ft. Project Cost: $31.6 million Construction Dates: May 2007-Nov. 2008Project Highlights: • Site elevated seven feet to provide optimal views while accommodating lower-level covered parking garage and out-of-sight service corridors. • Bi-fold doors and windows and multiple seating options used to provide indoor/outdoor ambience and “restaurants within a restaurant” variety. • Popular light menu and atmosphere capturing strong evening traffic.

The center of this action is the new Anglo-Caribbean-style Beach Club at the John’s Island Club, a 1,400-member property that has been a Vero Beach fixture since 1969. Opened in November 2008, the new Beach Club replaced a facility with the same name and in the same location—across the road, along a stretch of pristine, club-owned Atlantic Ocean shoreline, from where John’s Island Club has its main clubhouse, three championship golf courses, 18 tennis courts, a 13,000-sq. ft. fitness center and much more, as part of an impressive array of member amenities.

Having the same name and location, though, is pretty much where the similarities between the old and new Beach Clubs end. The first version had long been a popular casual dining spot, but was one-dimensional in what it offered and severely limited in its ability to host large numbers. So after the old Beach Club, like the rest of the property, took a double whammy of hits from successive hurricanes in 2004, the John’s Island Board and its management team, led by General Manager Brian Kroh, stepped up plans to revamp the site and building so it could provide a better fit with John’s Island’s changing membership and activity needs.

Same Space, Much Different Place
Those changes started with more varied menu options. Drawing heavily on input generated from member surveys and focus groups, and working closely with the club’s Design and Facilities Committees, Kroh, along with Assistant GM David Colclough and Executive Chef John Farnsworth, wanted to turn the new Beach Club into a venue where members and their guests of all ages could enjoy a greater variety of food and beverage choices in a wider range of settings. At the same time, they wanted the new site to also give people young and old who weren’t planning to eat or drink incentive to cross the road, by providing new places to relax and hang out that could be every bit as attractive and enjoyable as the beach itself.

For the F&B side, a plan was drawn up to create three distinct dining venues: a main “Island Room” that would open up to an elevated terrace overlooking the new pool deck and ocean; a more intimate “Ocean Hearth” dining room, and a “Rafters” bar. The concept for the new Beach Club was also packed with a list of attractions that included a game room with billiards and other tables; “soft seating” areas, both indoors and outdoors, arranged around inviting fireplaces; a library; a kids room, and more.

It all certainly made up a grand new plan. But there was another similarity with the old Beach Club: All of these features would have to fit into the same footprint, because there was no room to expand beyond the original site. And the need to address inadequate parking and provide more kitchen and storage space, while keeping service operations largely hidden from view through a “Disney-like” system of underground corridors, only added to the challenge at hand.

The “Rafters” bar and its tapas-style menu has proved to be the most popular venue of the new Beach Club. “We built Rafters for 300 meals a day, and at Christmas and other peak periods we’ve already had 600,” says GM Brian Kroh. “It’s clear we tapped into a market—the after-movie snack and after-dinner drink crowd—that’s bigger than we thought.”

Rising to the Occasion
The solutions, devised and directed by John’s Island’s Director of Engineering, Rex Wilson, in conjunction with a team of experienced outside contractors well-versed in club projects, began with an innovative decision: If the site couldn’t be expanded outwardly, it would be increased vertically, by adding another seven feet of elevation. This not only provided more space for a lower-level parking garage and out-of-the-way service areas, it also created optimal ocean views for everything that would be above ground.

And for the new spaces that the membership would use, the emphasis was on keeping everything, inside and out, as open and as integrated as possible.

The new Beach Club experience starts by proceeding past a landscaped wall that establishes a connection with the rest of the John’s Island property, by replicating the look of the base of the club’s Golf Clubhouse. Stairs and ramps beyond the wall lead to entry doors for an atrium that offers an immediate view across the pool to the ocean. Specially milled, mahogany-planked doors with louvered sidelights can be adjusted to modulate the sea breezes as they come through the atrium.

“We were concerned it might be a real wind tunnel,” says Kroh. “But we’ve been surprised at how pleasant it’s been to have the breezes coming through as people come in, and we’ve kept [the atrium doors] open more than we thought.”

The “outdoor living room” has proved to be a popular destination for members who like to hang out at the Beach Club, even if they weren’t planning to eat or drink there.

The atrium also provides access to the adjacent food and beverage venues. The Island Room has been designed to seat up to 144 in booths, banquettes and freestanding tables of various sizes and shapes. Reflecting a recurring design theme throughout the new Beach Club, the center of the Island Room opens entirely to an outdoor dining terrace through mahogany bi-fold, stacked wall panels, and its east wall opens to pool deck seating through bi-folding mahogany doors. Like other rooms in the new clubhouse, it features heavy timber trusses and milk-washed, woodplanked ceilings with lighter-toned stone floors.

The more intimate, 68-seat Ocean Hearth room also has exterior walls that provide cross-ventilation and abundant natural light through mahogany bi-fold windows over raised planter boxes. To create a quieter dining venue, acoustical ceiling treatments are disguised behind a decorative foil of painted wood grilles. And the intimacy of the room is enhanced by a planked wood fireplace.

“All of the Beach Club rooms have been designed to offer an indoor/outdoor ambience that most clubs and restaurants can’t provide,” says Brian Idle, principal with Peacock + Lewis, the project’s architectural firm. “This gives the flexibility of expanding seating capacity on nice days and nights.

“Further, the variety of seating options within each room, with booths and banquettes in addition to tables, makes it possible to have different experiences each time you dine,” Idle adds. “Being able to offer these kinds of environmental options and create the concept of ‘restaurants within a restaurant’ are going to be keys for clubs that want to provide truly unique settings in the future.”

Filled to the Rafters
To the north of the atrium is the “Rafters” bar/lounge space that has proved to be the new Beach Club’s most popular venue since its opening. Featuring views to the beach as well as the pool deck and an adjacent “outdoor living room,” Rafters’  perimeter walls also open, with mahogany bi-fold doors, to raised, covered loggia areas for additional dining space.

Rafters also offers an abundance of seating options, including bar stools along a face-lit, granite-topped bar, bistro table stools, club chairs at cocktail tables, and cushioned rattan lounge chairs. And from the moment the new Beach Club opened, pretty much every seat of every kind has been filled, from earlier in the day to much longer at night than anyone at John’s Island anticipated.

“We built Rafters for 300 meals a day, and at Christmas and other peak periods we’ve already had 600,” Kroh says. “It’s clear we tapped into a market—the after-movie snack and after-dinner drink crowd—that’s bigger than we thought.”

The design of rooms throughout the new Beach Club makes innovative use of bi-folding doors, panels and windows that lead to outdoor dining terraces, to greatly increase the variety and appeal of dining and relaxation options while staying within the same footprint as the previous version of the club.

Much of the appeal comes from the food. Rafters features a tapas-style, small plates menu (presented, appropriately, in special mahogany frames, into which Chef Farnsworth slips computer-generated “chalkboard font” printouts as he makes menu changes). “There’s been overwhelming acceptance,” Farnsworth reports. “We’ve had constant, positive comments about how much people like the opportunity to eat light here.”

But atmosphere has also contributed to Rafters’ appeal—even from the pool and beach itself. Walk-up snack windows have proved to be extremely popular, and John’s Island has also instituted a service stand at the water’s edge, to serve beachside sunbathers from the same menu available within the building.

“The Beach Club’s the future; it captures all the reasons people want to come to Florida, and that’s why it’s a runaway success,” Chef Farnsworth says. “We’ve already set new records for lunch traffic, and we haven’t even seen the Easter and Spring Break crowds yet.”

Leading a tour, Kroh sees a young woman with several small kids, all happily enjoying what the new clubhouse has to offer. “That’s what we’re looking for,” he says. “We were convinced that if we stayed with the core mission of making this a family-friendly place for all generations, it would give more people more reasons to come here, and that’s certainly proving to be the case.

“All in all, we’re very happy with how the new design and concepts are working out; it’s been perfect timing that’s really given us a booster shot.”

About a third of the 300 members of Evanston Golf Club (EGC) reside within the Chicago city limits. For these members—like the many other city residents before them who joined the club after its founding in 1898—a primary appeal has always been how EGC (which is actually not in Evanston, but in Skokie, a neighboring suburb) offers an easy respite from the city’s noise and crowds, through its marvelous Donald Ross golf course and other tranquil parts of its 225-acre property.

Several years into EGC’s second century of existence, however, a distinct “migration pattern” of the club’s city-based members was becoming hard to ignore. “They would show up in the late afternoon or on the weekend to tee it up,” notes Jon Talty, Chairman and CEO of Chicago-based OKW Architects. “But when they came back in off the course, if they stopped to even have just one drink before heading home, it was surprising. Even though they’d made the trip out, there was nothing [besides the golf course] to keep them there once they’d played.”

Even worse, EGC’s larger, suburban-based membership wasn’t exactly filling the clubhouse to capacity, either. After a series of less-than-successful attempts at piecemeal interior upgrades, Evanston’s Tudor-style, 90-year-old clubhouse building, while still handsome on the outside, had not only become outdated, but downright dysfunctional, inside. “The club was clearly in need of substantial renovation,” says Talty of the situation that existed by the mid-2000s.

Permanent Preservation
As often occurs when things deteriorate to such a degree, a groundswell grew among a sizeable portion of the membership for demolishing the 55,000-sq. ft. clubhouse and starting over. But like many clubs, EGC’s governing structure had a committee in place specifically to address its long-range needs. In this case, the committee was called Permanent Planning—and its members took the name to heart, as they championed the cause for finding a way to keep what had already stood in place for so long.

“It was a real battle,” recalls John Hammond, who became Chairman of the committee in 2004 and describes himself as “captain of the team” that favored renovation. Eventually, that side  prevailed—in part because of their determination not to let so much of the club’s history be destroyed, but more persuasively, because it was shown that building a new clubhouse of the same size would be cost-prohibitive.

“If you built new, you’d have to come down in scale significantly,” says Talty. “Beyond that, [the committee leaders] showed a lot of courage and vision in pushing for a full-scale renovation that would touch some very sacred spaces while trying to repair what had been a badly neglected infrastructure. And at the same time, much of that space wouldn’t just be restored—it would be reinvented to better fit how the club needed to function, not only today, but for its next generation of members.”

Taking such a forward look at the same time the club was trying to carefully preserve its past proved to be a tricky proposition, Talty adds. “The existing structure was limiting, especially in terms of things like ceiling heights,” he notes. “And as we got into the needed updates of mechanical systems, the magnitude of many of the problems proved to be much more enormous than anticipated. It soon went well beyond just aesthetics.”

That only led at first to more grumbling, Hammond reports. “After we shut the clubhouse down to start in July 2006, at first it was very slow, because as we tore down walls, we kept discovering new things,” he says. “By Christmas, it looked like the Army had come in and bombed us. And there were many who were eager to point that out and say there was no way it was all going to get done properly, or on time.”

Tightly Run Team
But just as the renovation advocates, led by the Permanent Planning Committee, had stuck to their guns in fighting off the initial push to replace the building,  they now put up a strong front to keep the skeptics at arm’s length and allow the project team to forge ahead.

That team was notable for both its limited size and varied makeup. In addition to OKW, it included the project contractor, Valenti Builders, and two Evanston Golf Club members who provided their expertise: Alex Zera, who runs a Chicago-area construction company, and Mary Cook, who heads a Chicago-based interior design firm, Mary Cook and Associates.

The final member of the team, to represent the EGC “staff,” was Bryan Polletta, a 25-year club employee. Polletta was serving as EGC’s Locker Room & Gun Club Manager when the decision was made to close the club (including the golf course) for the renovation and retain only a handful of employees during the year of expected construction. With the club experiencing transition in its General Manager position, Polletta was tapped to be the on-site contact for the various vendors and club members and officers involved with the project.

“Having Bryan in that position was a lifesaver,” says Cook. “He was the go-to guy who, any time of day or night, could get [others on the team] a needed measurement, or take a photo, or get required documents to us. Having been there 25 years, he knew all the nuances of how the place had operated.”

Project team members also credit Hammond’s Planning Commmittee for keeping them shielded from interference, so they could eventually produce results that won over the doubters.

“There was terrific stewardship [by the committee] that allowed the core group to function effectively,” says OKW’s Talty. “From our standpoint, this was a welcomed luxury, especially for a project involving a debate that had gone on for so long and evoked so much passion.”

Hammond says the message conveyed by the committee was straightforward: “From the beginning, we said this cannot be a project that would be governed by the entire membership,” he notes. “We made it clear we were confident in the people we had selected to manage the project and were going to let them do whatever they felt was needed to do it right. By further into the spring the naysaying died down, as people started to see what was being accomplished.

“There are always two big questions,” Hammonds adds, “related to these kinds of projects: Will it be done on time? Will it come within a reasonable range of the budget? In the end, the team ended up doing the entire building, instead of just the 75% we started out to do, and still finished on time and within 5% of [the $13 million] budget.”

New Faces in New Places 
But the most impressive results of all became evident once the EGC clubhouse doors were reopened in June 2007, and members and guests alike came back to discover an entirely new club within the same walls and under the same roof.

“It was all worth it, once we were able to watch people’s reactions as they started to come in,” says Zera. “The big thing is how [the renovation] opened up views, not only within the building but in some cases all the way through it. I can’t tell you how many times someone has now said, ‘I didn’t know you could see the golf course from here.’

“Where people were embarrassed before to bring customers out, and our guest rounds were down, now they’re dreaming up reasons to have parties,” Zera adds. “For the members themselves, our locker rooms and lounges have become real hangouts.

“There’s nothing I’d do differently,” Zera says. “From the increased use we’ve seen almost immediately [upon reopening], it’s clear we achieved our goal: to bring the club up to modern standards without losing its character.”

And more than a year after that reopening, many new positive first impressions continue to be made, Cook adds.

“Bryan [Polletta] and Joe Turner [who became the club’s new General Manager after it reopened] still keep telling me after we have a member-guest or other event that they’ve heard more people comment, ‘We need to do this at our club,’ ” Cook says. “And I heard one member say the club is now like an English countryside estate. That really tells me we were successful in restoring [the clubhouse’s] original architectural integrity, and that the heritage we had here was definitely worth saving.”          C&RB

About a half-hour into a tour he’s leading of the new Grand Clubhouse of The Tesoro Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., J.R. Congdon, Director of Club Operations, pauses for a moment. Congdon is in good shape, but even he needs to occasionally catch an extra breath while covering the building’s three floors and over 90,000 square feet of indoor space and outdoor terraces.

“This building will wear you out,” he chuckles. “Working in it is a real test of stamina.”

The intricate detail work evident throughout the clubhouse’s interior and exterior held up to rigorous testing, to ensure the building will have as much permanence as the 15th-century Mediterranean style it faithfully recreates.

But building Tesoro’s Grand Clubhouse was a far greater test of endurance and perseverance. The project unfolded over five years—and while the original vision of the club developer, The Ginn Company, remained clear and consistent as it worked with a strong team of project partners to produce a building that fully delivered (and then some) on the original intent and promise, more than a few unanticipated challenges had to be met along the way.

In the period between when the concept for Tesoro’s majestic, Italianate Mediterranean-style clubhouse was first sketched out in 2002, and when its gala grand opening was held last October, these were just some of the developments that required major midstream adjustments:

• The sighting of nesting bald eagles on the property in 2003, which prompted a reorientation of the clubhouse. (Ginn decided to convert a huge parcel of land around the nesting area into a preserve—and changed the plans so the back of the clubhouse would now look out over that area. A “Web cam” now monitors the eagles’ activity; it captured the birth of two new eaglets in early January 2008, bringing the total born since the preserve was created to four.)

• Two major hurricanes hit South Florida during the project’s development and construction. In addition to short-term disruptions caused by the storms, the project team had to adjust to the residual effects of building-code revisions made in reaction to them—each of which led to increasingly stringent requirements for how the Tesoro clubhouse would have to stand up to future potential disasters. In addition, the hurricane recovery efforts had a major impact on the price, and availability, of building materials, putting significant pressure on the budget for the $44 million project.

• Then in 2007, with the project in the home stretch, a sudden opportunity arose to bring a PGA Tour Fall Series event to Tesoro, which features Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson signature courses that wind around all sides of the clubhouse site. The plans to host the tournament (the Running Horse Golf Championship, shifted from Running Horse Golf & Country Club in Fresno, Calif., after that property filed for bankruptcy) were announced in mid-June—to be held in late October.

“That’s when the burner really got turned up to high,” reports Brian Idle, Senior Vice President and Director of Hospitality Design for Peacock + Lewis, the architectural firm for the project. “We had already accomplished quite a bit as a team to that point—but it really took some extra effort to finish on that timetable.”

Navigating the full lengths, and heights, of all that Tesoro has now become keeps Director of Club Operations J.R. Congdon in top shape.

No Signs of Strain
In all, the Tesoro clubhouse project went through “no less than eight different major [design] versions” in its five years of development, reports Congdon. But by the time the grand opening was held, just prior to the PGA tournament, the building was not only completed, but dressed properly for a black-tie gala for 400 members and guests that featured a performance in the new third-floor ballroom by Liza Minnelli. (Tesoro, currently with 475 members, plans to have a total membership of over 900, balanced fairly equally between its golf and social categories, according to Congdon.)

“We had to test the building under fire,” Congdon says. “From the staff’s perspective, we were like a football team moving into a new stadium, and our first game was the Super Bowl. And of course, the original plans, to have Liza Minnelli perform outside, had to be changed at the last minute because of the weather; we made a decision to move inside at 5:00 PM, and she was on stage in the new ballroom at 8:00.”

Like every other adjustment made over the previous five years to prepare the Tesoro clubhouse for its coming-out party, this one worked out just fine. “The building performed very well [for the grand opening], and has continued to do so ever since,” Congdon said in January. “Everyone who comes through here just marvels at the architecture; the initial impact is jaw-dropping. And each time you go through, you notice something different. There are so many touches and nuances in the details, both inside and out.”

Getting the Go-Aheads
Representatives of firms on the Tesoro project team—which in addition to Peacock + Lewis included the interior design firm, Image Design, Inc., and Weitz Golf International, the general contractor—unanimously cite one key to being able to produce such a spectacular result, on time and within budget, despite the many significant hurdles that were encountered along the way.

From company founder Bobby Ginn on down, everyone says, those on the client side would never let any impediment stand in the way of compromising the original vision.

“It got a little bit scary after the first hurricane in 2004,” reports Matt Blackburn, Vice President of Pre-Construction for Weitz Golf. “Materials prices really started to jump, and we hadn’t yet signed many of the subcontractors that would be needed for the project.

“But Ginn is a different owner, for sure,” says Blackburn. “They insisted from the start that all budgets include enough cushion for unforeseen situations. That foresight let us still find the right people, and materials, needed to do the job as originally intended, without any of the cutbacks or squeezing that you often see on these kinds of projects when things get tight.”

This became even more critical when post-hurricane code revisions imposed stringent new testing and durability requirements on the plans for an elegantly designed building that included, among many stunning features, a three-story tower, over 100 arched windows, wrought-iron gates and over 28,000 square feet of outdoor space, including wraparound covered loggias and roofed open galleries.

“As the design evolved, the outside areas became just as important as inside for the overall experience that we wanted members to have—especially after we decided to create the [eagles’] preserve off the back,” notes J.R. Congdon. “Almost all of the inside function space is designed to be able to easily move outside whenever possible. In fact, you can almost walk around the entire perimeter of the upper floors, just using the terrace areas alone.”

But placing so much of an emphasis on outdoor experiences, and functionality, doesn’t mesh easily with a building-code inspector’s demand for assurances that everyone, and everything, can withstand Category Four storms. Here again, Ginn is given credit for not sparing any expense needed to be able to secure required permits without sacrificing the intent of the design.

“Ginn wasn’t afraid to spend for better products and materials,” says Brian Bernardo, Vice President of Construction Management for Weitz Golf. “And it’s a pretty hardy building, for sure. Structurally it’s very stout, with no synthetic materials, no foam—nothing ‘faux’ at all.”

Tesoro represents an excellent example of “a marriage of creative and beautiful design with functionality,” agrees Sandra Berg of Image Design, Inc. As she directed interior projects that included hand-painting of murals and ceilings and extensive use of imported materials, custom fabrics and furnishings, and elegant accents such as hand-blown Murano glass lamps, Ginn’s even-handed devotion to quality and structural integrity created “the best of all possible worlds” for her part of the project, says Berg.

The most challenging need for an effective blending of form and function came from the Tesoro clubhouse’s most distinctive feature of all: the central tower. “[The tower] was in the plans from the very beginning,” reports Brian Idle of Peacock + Lewis. “It was essential to the iconic look that Ginn wanted to establish not only for the club, but also the surrounding community, as something that would stand out proudly in the landscape and reflect a feeling of timelessness.

“While it’s a great opportunity to be able to design such a signature feature, especially in an historical context that would evoke 15th-century Italy, we also had to remember that the tower would need to be built, and function as, a smoke evacuation system,” says the Project Architect, Steve Pollio. “That created special challenges for us. The answer was a system of louvered slats within the window arches that are not noticeable at all, but will open automatically if needed.”

All of this upfront attention to quality and functionality, says Jon Olson, Project Manager for Peacock + Lewis, has not only paid off already for Tesoro through the initial impact made by the building, but will continue to do so for many years, through a greatly reduced need for maintenance or repair.

“The value of ‘lifecycle costing’ is an issue that often gets overlooked, especially in projects where changes have to be made as you go along,” Olson says. “I would put this project, easily, in the top two percent, in terms of its attention to detail and process.”

A huge positive contribution to that process, Olson adds, came from Ginn’s decision to have a full-time Project Director focus solely on Tesoro. Brian Lacusky, with extensive and varied construction management experience that includes work on Denver’s Coors Field, was put in charge of guiding the permitting and testing processes and orchestrating a network of over 20 key consultants and contractors.

“[Having a project director] was very valuable on a project on this size, where there’s a need to coordinate so many different elements of the team and to recognize how a change in one area will create a domino effect for the work of others,” agrees Image Design’s, Sandra Berg. “It really helped keep the project on track and preserve its character, by allowing all of us to focus on the true intent of the design.”

You’ve
hired an award winning architect and have a quality general contractor on
board, they will know what needs to be done, right? Wrong! Don’t assume too
much as they will not be using the building when it is completed, you will. And
only you will know what you’ll need in the building to make it function
properly and efficiently. Certainly a great architect and builder will help
with many of the items required to make the building function, but not all of
them. The best advice I can give any manager that is about to begin a
construction project is spend some quality time with the blueprints before
construction begins. Let all your department heads look at them also. Think
about how the building will get used daily. How will you set up for that big
wedding or for Easter Sunday Brunch? Will a band have enough power for sound
and lights? Where will the POS stations be located? Where will everything get
stored? Sufficient storage is an area that is a favorite of many building
committees to cut back on to lower construction costs. Quality time spent here
will save many change orders and tons of money down the road. Of the two major
club construction projects I’ve been involved in, both had engineers that
wanted to put the thermostat for the room in the middle of a wall right where I
would like to hang a painting or something else of more visual interest. Needless
to say the thermostats were ultimately located near a door opening. Where will
all the furniture be placed in the common areas? Will there be wall outlets to
power the table lamp there? What about microphone jacks and sound system
controls? Where will they be located on the walls? There are countless items to
think about and it may seem overwhelming at times. Tackle it in bits and pieces
by studying say electrical first. Look at outlet locations, light dimmer and
sound system controls, etc. Then move on to plumbing plans. Are there hose bibs
outside to water the landscaping, accessible cleanouts in the bathrooms, etc?
My last bit of advice is to keep copious notes and a good paper trail to insure
items brought to the architect for correction make it onto the construction
documents.

What
follows is a list of items to consider when planning a renovation or building
project. This list was started by John Jordan, MCM and has been added to by
club managers that have experienced some of these issues. While it isn’t all
encompassing, it is a good starting point of things to consider.

• Always provide floor drains in toilet areas to accommodate toilet
  overflows and in wet areas to facilitate cleaning.
• Hose bibs need to be provided in wet areas to accommodate "hose downs"
  and pressure spray cleaners.
• Accessible clean-out traps need to be provided in toilet and wet areas
  to facilitate unclogging stopped up drain lines.
• Water lines to pool, pump, and filter systems need to be separate from
  water lines to pool houses.
• Hire a sound engineer early in the design process. Most architects
  do not include speaker and sound system volume control boxes in their
  electrical plans and conduit needs to be run for microphone jacks and speaker
  control boxes. Conduit chases also need to be provided through walls for
  speaker wiring.
• When designing ballrooms make sure the electrical plan has a sufficient
  outlets/power for bands and lighting. Consider having a 220V electrical
  outlet installed at points where bands may be placed in the room.Cheap to
  do during construction, expensive to do after.If using 120V duplex
  outlets, make sure there is a sufficient number all on separate breakers for
  bands and lighting.
• Consider providing floor outlets in meeting spaces for AV equipment.
  Most architects will not provide them in their initial plans.
• Get your coffee provider to supply specs for brewing equipment when
  planning kitchen electrical needs. More power generally means faster
  recovery and the ability to brew more coffee faster. The fastest coffee
  brewers require 3 phase electrical power.
• In cold climates, if your fire protection system is a "wet" sprinkler,
  make sure sprinkler pipes are all located in insulated/heated areas. It
  is amazing how much water comes out when a sprinkler pipe freezes and breaks.
• Get the local sanitarian/health inspector involved in the kitchen design
  process. Their input will be beneficial and help to avoid costly
  retrofits. Being forced to install additional hand washing stations AFTER
  the kitchen is built is a problem you’ll want to avoid.
• In-house laundry rooms require a tremendous amount of ventilation.
  Make sure they are designed near an exterior wall at a point where the vent
  pipes will not be unsightly from the exterior of the building.
• Kitchen door sizes should be 48" and have right hand swings.
• Sufficient slope needs to be provided so water drains away from any
  building.
• Exterior hose bibs need to be provided to accommodate hosing down walks
  and drives.
• It is best to provide restroom facilities near the turn stand. This is particularly true for ladies. A
  ladies restroom should have no less than four commodes to accommodate ladies
  foursome on the turn.
• It is critical to use the best mechanical, electrical, plumbing, kitchen
  and structural consultants available. Their mistakes besmirch the architectural
  firm’s reputation and can cause lasting operational problems and difficulties
  for the owner.
• To ensure maximum success, once a month during the decision phase have
  an Executive Summary Meeting with Chairman of Building Committee, Owner’s Rep,
  and Architect to discuss design issues, team relationships, communication, and
  other design related issues.
• Make sure there is a clear understanding among all involved of where
  interior design begins and architecture ends and vice versa.
• The architect’s contract should include the interior design firm as a
  subcontract to ensure coordination and timely interior design.
• Particular attention should be paid to designing for maximum efficiency
  and for proper utilization of payroll dollars.
  For example, having coat check room adjacent to front desk permits the
  coat check function to be accomplished by the receptionist thus saving the cost
  of a coat check person.
• Design walk-in boxes so you enter a freezer through a pre-chilled
  walk-in cooler. Doing so saves operating
  costs.
• Provide for adequate storage space!
• Table storage areas must be large enough to accommodate all tables and
  chairs from not only banquet rooms but regular member areas as well. This allows maximum use of space for any
  number of set-ups for weddings and cocktail parties.
• Ample out-of-sight employee parking needs to be provided near employee
  entrance.
• Restroom areas need a strong ventilation system to provide plenty of
  fresh air.
• Golf Shop and cart staging area need to be on same level.
• Ladies Locker Room needs to be farther from Golf Shop than the Men’s
  Locker Room happens to be.
• Pay attention to sight lines from hallways to restrooms and locker
  rooms.
• Make sure shower heads are of Country Club quality.
• Understand 2" concrete is apt to crack under the slightest stress.
• Showers should not be located near exterior windows.
• Make sure massage rooms have sinks and that the flooring stands up to
  the weight of massage table.
• Doors to bag room need to be wide enough to accommodate someone carrying
  a bag on each shoulder.
• All delivery areas need to be properly screened and hidden from view.
• The service yard needs to be surfaced with five or six inches of poured
  concrete to accommodate heavy garbage trucks and large delivery trucks. Such service yards need drains to permit
  areas to be hosed down for cleaning.
• Be aware of the need for vertical circulation.
• Porches and verandahs need to be below the level of main floor to
  accommodate the views of those in the building.
• Need wall space to intermix and balance with windows (you need places to
  rest your eyes).
• Design lighting so dimmers on tray and vaulted ceilings work
  independently of chandeliers and of the sconces located in the same areas.
• Be sensitive to acoustics and sound levels in dining areas to ensure
  noise levels are kept to a reasonable level. Plaster ceilings are beautiful to
  look at but don’t function well from a sound absorbing standpoint.
• Bar tops should be deep enough for patron to slide legs underneath
  comfortably.
• Floor structure needs to be sufficiently rigid in dining areas so floors
  won’t shake when walked upon.
• Use light colored tile under urinals.
  Make sure urinals have adequate bottom lips.
• Allow sufficient overhang of roof to keep windows clean and dry during
  "normal" rain storms. (Constant cleaning of window exteriors is expensive).
• Insulate all cold water drain lines so that the condensation doesn’t
  drip through the ceiling.
• Make sure kitchen doors are solid wood (as opposed to hollow core).
• Make sure small windows are located in kitchen doors to avoid
  collisions.
• Make sure trench drains are installed in front of ice machines to
  accommodate ice spillage.
• Make sure gutters are placed around all areas of building to avoid mud
  from splattering up onto and staining exterior surfaces.
• Make sure to provide suitable lighting between the cart staging area and
  cart barn.
• Place locks on men’s and ladies locker rooms to keep non-members from
  entering during after hour private parties.
• Ensure that soil stacks are located a sufficient distance from fresh air
  intakes (or cap them with one way vent caps).
• Understand that pavers are subject to battery acid spills and oil drips
  and plan accordingly.
• Make sure employee restrooms are strategically located near kitchens,
  dining rooms and other busy areas to assist staff in a quick return time.
• When constructing a Porte Cochere, allow adequate height and width to
  accommodate motor coaches and tour buses to drive underneath for boarding and
  un-boarding – especially in inclement weather.
• Ensure that patterned carpet is used in dining areas. This helps to hide
  food spills. Avoid ever using light colored carpet.
• Make sure chairs used in food service areas have a waterfall front
  edge. Use of ribbing will trap crumbs
  and create a constant maintenance problem. Enclosed seat backs will also
  collect crumbs.
• Wood chairs should have stringers to strengthen the legs.
• Be sure that chair arms will fit under table tops without scratching the
  chair arms or the table edges.
• Avoid plain wooden arms on chairs used in casual food areas. Body oils and sweat will accumulate in time
  and create a grimy appearance which in turn can be difficult to maintain
  without removing the finish on the arm itself.
  Consider covering arms of such chairs with leather or a top quality
  vinyl covering -both types of covering will lend themselves to easy
  maintenance.
• Never put a drop ceiling in an employee area because this provides
  "hiding places" to facilitate employee theft.
• Make sure floors are well-braced and that poured concrete slabs are
  thick enough so floors don’t shake as people walk upon them. It is particularly annoying to diners for the
  floor and their tables to rock to and fro as servers and other patrons walk
  between and by their tables.
• On doors to restroom stalls, use a door closer that allows the door to
  only close 75% to 80% of the way. This
  would accommodate a potential user to see which stall might be available.
• Make sure drinking fountains are readily available within the Men’s and
  Ladies Locker Rooms.
• Make sure dirty dish zone is not too small and ideally is located near
  the kitchen entrance so that the return of dirty dishes to be washed doesn’t
  require walking from one end of the kitchen to the other.
• Storage areas and coolers need to be close to the delivery entrance.
• Make sure to border the carpet in a manner that doesn’t distinguish the
  new portions of the carpet versus the old in relation to traffic patterns.
• Upon considering furnishings for Men’s Card Room or Grill, give very
  strong consideration for the sake of the older members to having chairs with
  casters to facilitate getting in
  and out of the chair.
• Upon purchasing dining room chairs, be sensitive that the seat backs of
  chairs are not so deep as to preclude ladies and/or shorter people from being
  able to sit with their backs against the back of the chair.
• If building a zero entry pool, make sure pool bottom is slip and skid
  proof for suntan lotion will make the bottom very slippery.
• For pool seating planning purposes, assume that about 15% of the total
  members of the club will visit the pool on a peak day, i.e. July 4, Memorial
  Day, Labor Day, etc. "Total Members" means all members and their direct family
  members. For instance, if a club has 1,000 members, statistically, there will
  be 3.75 (number of people in average American household – don’t ask about the
  .75 person) times 1,000 or 3,750 total members.
  Assume that 1/3 to 10% of the total members – in this example, 188 to
  375 seats will be needed. Clearly, you wouldn’t want that many seats around the
  pool all the time, so there normally would be a fraction of these put out. Naturally, storage becomes a problem. Also,
  try to design approximately the total deck area to be three times the pool
  surface Area. Assume 2/3 of this will be
  paved and 1/3 will be grass that is flat enough for chairs on a peak day. The
  number of seats that will fit on a given deck area must be determined through
  design studies since the shape and size of decks vary for each pool.

Read Previous Parts

Part One

Part Two

View / Download PDF of Floor Plan

Many of the "plumbing
problems" in the old clubhouse were due to the high mineral content of our
potable well water. The Village of Northfield
was approached about a possible annexation from unincorporated Cook County
into the Village which would give us access to their water supply. After much negotiation between the Village,
the Club’s Board and our respective legal counsel, a deal was struck and the
Club was annexed into the Village that fall.

Initial renovation plans
called for most of the clubhouse to close January 1, 2004 and reopen Memorial Day of
2005. The men’s and ladies’ locker rooms
would remain open for much of the construction.
One bar, located in the men’s locker room, would also remain open. Platform tennis and skeet programs would
operate as usual that winter. We also
planned to keep the tennis courts, pool and pool snack bar operational that
summer. The golf course renovations
would begin in July of 2004 and be completed in time for the following
season. We would try to pack a year’s
worth of golf events into the front half of a construction shortened
season. Food service for all these
events, and daily lunch service in the one remaining bar area, would need to be
produced from our pool snack bar kitchen.
I don’t know what your pool snack bar is like, but this sounds much
easier than it actually is. Ours was not
equipped to provide food for an entire club.
A portable grill was purchased to supplement the equipment in the pool
snack bar.

October, November and
December were spent planning for the shutdown of the majority of the clubhouse
in January of 2004. We would have only
six short weeks to move out of the clubhouse and have the much of the building
ready to be demolished by mid February.
Temporary administrative offices had to be located and wired, off site
storage arranged for all the items we wished to keep and salvage contractors
arranged for items we didn’t. Coolers,
freezers and ice machines were moved to our cart storage area to provide the
refrigeration and ice we would need to keep some portions of our food service
operational. We needed all six weeks to
move out and prepare for the demolition.

Thankfully, we had told
prospective parties we may not have a clubhouse in 2004, so all our banquet
bookings were on a tentative basis.
Other clubs in the area were contacted and we requested dining
reciprocity for our members during our construction. I’m grateful to the boards and managers of
the thirteen clubs that agreed to open their clubs to our membership. Our members could continue to receive the
"private club experience" during the fifteen months it would take to build a
new clubhouse.

Certainly, one of the most
difficult decisions of the entire renovation project was what would happen to
our loyal staff, many who had worked at the Club a decade or more? The project "downtime" budget could not support
normal payroll and many of the clubhouse employees would have to be laid
off. Some employees could be shifted
around to areas that would remain operational and some would be called back to
work the pool snack bar and golf events that summer. The Board approved a severance package for
the staff that would be laid off, giving them one week’s pay for each year of
service to the Club. To receive this
severance, employees would need to work through the end of December, when the
clubhouse would close.

Demolition began as scheduled
in February of 2004 and most of the old clubhouse was reduced to a large pile
of rubble in two short weeks. Demolition
and site preparation would continue into May.
Almost immediately plan changes and project scope additions began to
occur. Sewer lines were not in the
condition we had hoped they’d be and the decision to replace them was a
necessary one. This would be one of the
first of 130 project change orders/scope additions to occur over the course of
the clubhouse construction.

One of the other major
decisions made along the way was to kill our current golf greens and reseed
them as part of the course renovations.
Since this was not part of the project scope that the membership had
approved earlier, and would require the closing of the entire golf course,
another membership vote was required.
Letters were written and presentations were made extolling the benefits
of doing this now, while the course is already disrupted. The vote to reseed our greens and close the
golf course was overwhelmingly approved by the membership, with only two
dissenting votes cast. I’m indebted to
the seventeen clubs that stepped up to the plate and offered golf reciprocity
to our members. The impact of closing
our golf course was lessened tremendously due to the generosity of these clubs.

The
largest project change was adding the renovation of the men’s locker room and
bar area to the project scope. This
would push the project budget to almost $15 million, two million over the
original $13 million budget. The entire
project, less the added scope, was completed on budget and was finished ahead
of schedule.

We reopened our clubhouse on
April 6^th and the golf course reopened on May 28^th of
this year. The membership absolutely
loves the results of the renovations and we now have a facility we can all be
very proud of. I was blessed with a
Board member that was assigned to oversee the project that has great knowledge
of the construction trades and a Club President that was willing to make some
tough decisions quickly. Without the
efforts of these two gentlemen, and all the members involved on the various
Club and Board committees, completing the project successfully would have been
nearly impossible.

I
would certainly never call what we did at our Club as being "easy", it was
not. I lost many hours of sleep fretting
over the many details of the planning and construction. And while the word "fun" never really entered
my mind during the construction phase, it has been fun seeing the members enjoy
the new facilities since we reopened. It
has made the two plus years of planning, the 130 design/construction meetings
I’ve attended, and last year and half of construction a worthwhile
experience. Now I get to start again
because the membership would like a new pool for next summer.

Part Three: Isn’t there supposed to be an outlet there? and, You want to put the thermostat where?

Click here to Read Part One

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