The Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. club, which merged with The Golf & Racquet Country Club at Eastpointe in 2015, plans to replace its West clubhouse with the 15,300-sq. ft., resort-style facility that would include two pools, two fire pits and a sports bar, plus an 8,700-sq. ft. fitness center, restaurant and entertainment deck. Future plans include the expansion of the East clubhouse, a new golf practice facility, expanded parking and a new administration building.

A resort-style recreation center with two pools, two fire pits and a sports bar could open by the end of next year at Eastpointe Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., The Palm Beach Post reported. The 15,300-sq.-ft. facility, which also would include an 8,700-sq.-ft. fitness center, restaurant and entertainment deck, is part of a major renovation project that began last May at the gated community.

As part of the initial phase of the project, which is expected to cost about $12 million, Eastpointe will replace its West clubhouse with the new recreation center, The Post reported. It also renovated three holes on its West golf course. The club debuted those holes in May.

Future plans include the expansion of the East clubhouse, a new golf practice facility, expanded parking and a new administration building, The Post reported.

“The No. 1 mantra we go by here is we continuously try to improve the membership experience,” said Paul Rogers, Eastpointe Country Club’s President and a longtime resident. “That’s our No. 1 goal. To get there is a challenge, but you can always do things better.”

Renovation work began last May, but plans for the project were in the works several years before that, The Post reported. Many of the facilities at Eastpointe Country Club, which were duplicated following a 2015 merger with the Golf and Racquet Club, were aging and out-of-date, Rogers said. That included both clubhouses and a number of holes on the East and West golf courses.

Rogers and other Eastpointe leaders believed the time was right to update some of the facilities while demolishing others to make room for new ones, The Post reported.

“We had one country club, but actually the infrastructure for two country clubs,” he said. “And the infrastructure was 40 years old or older. It needed a lot of work, a lot of updating to keep the community moving forward, to improve the community and the country club from not so competitive in terms of amenities, to very competitive.”

Board members created a plan to sell the driving range and tennis courts at the Golf & Racquet Club to a developer, who would build 75 single-family homes starting at around $700,000 on the 20-acre parcel, The Post reported. Money from the sale would be used to transform the Golf & Racquet Club’s old clubhouse into a recreation center and create a new administrative building to centralize golf operations.

Eastpointe Country Club currently counts 600 golf members and about 400 social members, Rogers told The Post.

Club members approved the plan in November 2018, and the Homeowners Association followed last April, The Post reported. Work on the three West course golf holes—the 1st, 9th and 18th—started a month later and concluded in May.

“We took some not-so-great golf holes and turned them into a really spectacular golf course,” Rogers said.

The three holes overlook the planned recreation center, which is expected to cost about $10 million, The Post reported. Final designs will be complete next week, Rogers said.

The existing clubhouse will be demolished this fall, Rogers told The Post, and construction on the recreation center is expected to get under way at the end of this year or in early 2021. It should take about a year to complete.

Work on the 75 single-family homes also is expected to begin next year, Rogers told The Post. Construction will take about a year.

“Eastpointe Country Club used to be known as the best-kept secret in northern Palm Beach County because we’re surrounded by some very well-known country clubs,” Rogers said. “I think what we’ve been able to do is put Eastpointe on the map.”