With construction beginning in November, the club hosted a public unveiling of the planned amenities, which will cover 1.28 acres and include an adult pool and nearby hot tub, a zero-entry family pool with a water slide, an indoor cafe, an open-air bar, and an event lawn.
Beach Boys music welcomed several hundred Pinehurst Resort & Country Club members to the public unveiling on September 26 of a proposed $4.2 million pool complex that officials believe will help the club grow and sustain its membership, the Southern Pines (N.C.) Pilot reported.
“We will now have amenities for everyone,” said Jay Biggs, senior vice president of golf and club operations for Pinehurst. “We’ve got a lot of amenities, and they are almost second-to-none in the club world. This is another piece of our plan to focus on the country club part of our business.”
The complex will be built on 1.28 acres next to the clubhouse that fronts the 18th green of Pinehurst No. 2. It includes an adult pool and nearby hot tub, a zero-entry family pool with a water slide and splash zones, cabanas, an indoor cafe, an open-air bar, a fire pit and an event lawn, the Pilot reported.
Members got a preview of the scale and scope of the project because club officials used blue paint to outline the pools, placed tents where the cabanas and buildings will be located, had a grill serving hamburgers and chicken at the cafe site, had a cash bar at the open-air bar space, and placed an inflatable slide in the water slide area, the Pilot reported.
Lounge chairs surrounded each “pool,” a lifeguard stand was placed by the adult pool, and chairs encircled the “fire pit.”
“It’s always neat when the members can visualize and get excited about it,” Biggs said. “We’re ready to swim.”
General Manager Jeff Shepard said the complex will “make every generation happy,” the Pilot reported
“We’re going to be able to blend and satisfy both the adults and the kids,” Shepard said. “And the possibilities are endless here for events. I am so excited. I can’t wait. It’s going to be an amazing complex.”
Shepard and Biggs gave away new T-shirts every 15 minutes that featured the iconic golf lad with an innertube around his waist, the Pilot reported.
“We want everyone to have fun,” Shepard said.
Construction is scheduled to begin in November and be completed by June 1, the Pilot reported.
“We’ve already started testing the soil,” Biggs said. “Our team has put a lot of work and effort into getting this together over the past couple of years.”
LKC Engineering in Aberdeen led the design team, which included Stagaard & Chao Architects in Pinehurst. “This is very member-centric in its focus, so we were fulfilling the direction the club was going,” said Robert Hayter, a principal at LKC who has been working with the resort since 1989. “This is not about golf. It’s not about resort guests. It’s about club members.
“This may be the most important landscape we’ve done for them because there’s no precedent.”
Among other things, Hayter said one of the main goals was to “portray a more tropical look with our plant groupings. We’re introducing hardy palm trees to the pool complex landscape. We want everything to look fresh, flowering and have a soft texture.”
Alan Stagaard, a principal at Stagaard & Chao, said he has proposed “a color palette that will have a hint of the tropics.”
“We want the pool complex to be a little more playful, vibrant and festive without compromising the architectural vernacular of the rest of the campus,” Stagaard said. “It’s still a work in progress, but we’re very close. I think the end result is just going to be spectacular.”
Stagaard added that the water slide is “not super-high, but it’s pretty long and twisting,” the Pilot reported
“There’s a lot of effect going on as you go down,” he said. “It will be a neat experience for the kids.”
Biggs noted that Hayter and Stagaard “have done a lot of work for Pinehurst over the years,” the Pilot reported.
“They’ve been great partners for a long time,” Biggs said. “There are very few country club pool complexes like this anywhere close to us. It makes us very relevant and sustains us for the next couple of decades. Golf-centric clubs are the ones struggling in the industry.”
Biggs said the club will host a series of open houses October 2-5 for residents of Pinehurst that are not members. Current members who refer a nonmember that joins will receive a complementary foursome on No. 8, the Pilot reported.
“We’re excited as heck,” he said. “This is a game-changer for us.”
Pinehurst Mayor Nancy Fiorillo, a club member, said the complex will be “a fabulous addition” to the club and the village, the Pilot reported.
“Especially given the changing demographics in the village,” Fiorillo said. “I think it’s wonderful. It’s going to be good for the club and good for the village.”
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