The club will turn 100 in 2022, and is commemorating the event with a $5 million renovation that is removing trees, repairing cart paths, and improving drainage on the golf course. However, the biggest changes will be in the clubhouse, which will be modernized with energy-efficient touches and be made more open and family-friendly with a new 19th hole with seating for 50, and an adjacent casual dining space.
Longmeadow (Mass.) Country Club will turn 100 in 2022, and will commemorate the anniversary with a $5 million renovation, Spingfield, Mass.-based BusinessWest reported.
The venerable institution has considerable history, much of it focused on two of the most famous names in the history of golf: Donald Ross and Bobby Jones. The former designed the course, and it is considered one of his best, while the latter often played Longmeadow Country Club and became a member there, BusinessWest reported.
The club has hosted a number of tournaments over the years, including several Massachusetts Amateurs and the 2005 U.S. Junior Amateur. The club has long been the only one in the region to have caddies, and its program has involved young people who would become captains of industry, and even captains in the military, BusinessWest reported.
Despite all the tradition, Longmeadow CC is not immune from the powerful forces impacting the game—and business—of golf and private clubs everywhere, said current President Patrick O’Shea, a lawyer by trade and avid golfer. “We no longer have a situation where the younger generation aspires, as a sign of success, to join a country club,” he said, summing up a complex matter rather simply. “The family money is going to a lot of places other than a country club.”
The need to respond to this sea change was the catalyst for the renovation at the club. There is some work taking place on the course itself, O’Shea noted, adding that several hundred trees have been taken down, mostly in an effort to bring sunlight into areas of the course that sorely need it. But the most sweeping changes will be in and around the clubhouse, BusinessWest reported.
The facility is being made more casual and more family-friendly, O’Shea said, citing everything from a completely new look and feel inside the clubhouse to a new pool and patio area outside. The plans call for demolishing the old tap room and nearby patio area and replacing that with a new 19th-hole/bar area with seating for about 50 people, with an adjacent casual dining space for nearly 100 people, with an open, family-friendly design, BusinessWest reported.
“The focus is on the casual, fun social-gathering spaces,” said General Manager Rod Clement, adding that the club is moving away away from the ‘white linen’ look and feel—although there will still be some of that if it’s appropriate. “People want spaces where they can see each and other and interact; they don’t have to be segregated in different venues of the club. People want to be part of a community and see people coming in and out.”
The extensive renovations bring with them a level of risk for the club—it has lost some members as a result of the assessment levied to help pay for it, and replacing them is challenging in this environment. But all those we spoke with said it was something the club needed to do as it strives to thrive not only in its second century, but in a new environment for private country clubs, BusinessWest reported.
Longmeadow is one of only two member-owned clubs left in this region, and every aspect of this project had to be approved by the long-range planning committee, which took ownership of the project, and then the membership as a whole, BusinessWest reported.
“I think it went quite smoothly,” said O’Shea, tongue firmly planted in cheek as he talked about what became several years of planning, revising plans, and revising them some more.
Talks concerning a serious makeover at the club actually began about five or six years ago, and escalated over time. “We had different national consultants come in and talk with the members and let them know that there are changes on the horizon in the country-club scene,” he told BusinessWest. “They said that it’s more family-centric, with women making more of the decisions about joining clubs, where before it was men.
“We have a spectacular golf course here—everyone knows that, we know that, we love it, we appreciate it, we’re stewards of it,” O’Shea said. “But we realized that we need more than that; we recognized that we need to enhance the family and social gathering places. Some of the spaces we had were more set up for the 1950s dining and dancing culture than the culture of today.”
By late 2015, a plan emerged for a $7.4 million renovation focused entirely on the clubhouse, with nothing slated for the course or pool and related facilities. After much consideration, and despite approval from the membership, the panel created for this initiative decided to “tap the brakes,” as O’Shea put it, and consider something on a smaller yet broader scale, BusinessWest reported.
Course changes were undertaken in accordance with a 54-page golf-course master plan prepared by golf architect Ron Prichard. While there will be repair work to the cart paths and installation of improved drainage on holes 9,12, and 17, the biggest change involves the removal of trees. More than 300 trees have been taken down since late last fall. A good number of trees have come down on the right side of the 10th fairway, but the biggest change is the removal of a large stand of trees between the 3rd and 6th holes, BusinessWest reported.
The clubhouse is being modernized with an elevator for handicap accessibility between the main level, pool-deck level, and the pool locker-room level below it, as well as foam insulation, new windows, and new roofing in some sections for increased efficiency. Overall, the makeover includes everything from that new front door to a new private dining room; from a new and expanded kitchen with energy-efficient equipment to a new audio-visual system, BusinessWest reported.
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