The Rancho Mirage, Calif., property is now known as The Sinatra Resort & Country Club, named after the street on which it is located. New owner Tim Martin is changing the property from an equity private club to a resort with plans for a hotel.
Under the ownership of Tim Martin, the Desert Island Golf & Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., is now known as The Sinatra Resort & Country Club, the Palm Springs, Calif., Desert Sun reported.
“We are basically rebranding the whole property,” Martin said. “What I found out in talking with people was a majority of people didn’t know where Desert Island was.”
In changing the club from an equity private club to a resort property with plans for a hotel that would provide high-end service and a country club atmosphere for guests, Martin said the new name will better represent his plans for the Rancho Mirage property, the Sun reported.
“We are on Frank Sinatra Drive and Bob Hope Drive,” Martin said. “I consider that the Rodeo Drive of the desert.”
A temporary sign proclaiming the name change is now at the corner of the two famous desert streets, just up the road from the club’s main entrance on Frank Sinatra Drive. It is the street the club entrance is on, not the famous singer and long-time desert resident, that inspired the name change, the Sun reported.
Martin’s purchase of the golf course is about more than just his desire to bring a smaller five-star hotel and golf resort to the desert. It is also the story of another private equity country club in the desert that faced difficult decisions about its future as golf continues to struggle to gain new players and retain older players. For Desert Island, the golf club faced financial pressures as the membership dwindled during the last 10 years, the Sun reported.
“That’s a fair look at it. I don’t think D.I. (Desert Island) is a lot different than a lot of other private equity clubs,” said Dave Thun, who was president of the Desert Island membership for a year and a half as the sale to Martin was negotiated. “The golf industry nationally has the same fundamental problems as we see in the Coachella Valley.”
Part of the issue at Desert Island was a common problem seen at other desert courses—not all residents in Desert Island’s condominium towers play golf, and those who don’t play golf didn’t want to supplement the golf course, Thun said. Fewer golfing members meant more financial burden on the remaining golf membership, eventually causing the club to study options other than remaining a private course owned by the membership, the Sun reported.
“We went through a long period of discussion of what our options were,” Thun said. “We were systematic about it. We tore it apart and put it back together again. We had four options. The key thing for us was to set a goal for Desert Island Golf and Country Club, which was to keep the golf course open at its historic level of service and keeping the core membership together.”
The membership at Desert Island still has the golf course to play. Members will have to share that course in the future with guests at Martin’s planned 100-room five-star hotel, the Sun reported.
For Martin, owner and president of Caddyshack Golf Carts in Palm Desert, this is his second venture into trying to purchase a local country club. Two years ago, Martin had plans to purchase the golf course and other land at Rancho Mirage Country Club, just across Bob Hope Drive from the Sinatra Resort and where Martin owns two homes. His plan there was to build a smaller hotel to go with the course, but the deal eventually fell through, the Sun reported.
At his new property, Martin has similar plans for a hotel with hopes to provide hotel guests with the same level of service and the same experience as members of the club, the Sun reported.
“When you look at the city (of Rancho Mirage) or even the Coachella Valley, there are wonderful resort properties, but they are very large,” Martin said. “What I want to do is go back to the day when customers are treated different. I see that going away. It’s not about the bottom line, how much you can squeeze out of the dollar. I want to go back to the days when food is fresh, customers were important. We’ve lost that whole feeling.”
The planned hotel sites on the property will not involve the current residential condo towers that are one of the landmarks of the course. The hotel has an undetermined opening date. It shouldn’t impact the current layout of the course, opened in 1972 and designed by Desmond Muirhead, the Sun reported.
“The towers are owned by the homeowners. I have no involvement in the condominiums,” Martin said. “There are three sites on property right now that we are looking at with architects and the city.”
Desert Island golf membership is generally happy with the new arrangement, and there was only one negative vote cast against the motion to sell to Martin. Thun said the golfers are happy to still be able to tee off on the golf course they know. “And we believe we’ll be doing that 10 years from now,” Thun said.
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