Fairmount Country Club (Chatham, N.J.) is building on the momentum of its Timmons House—a 10,000-square-foot two-level building giving members access to the pool, paddle courts, and dining options that opened in 2019—with a $12 million clubhouse renovation project.
“The Timmons House project really changed the dynamic of what the Fairmount experience was able to offer, and it enabled FCC to become a true year-round Club,” says Alex McDonald, General Manager/COO of Fairmount Country Club.
The introduction of the Timmons House allowed other areas of the club to flourish.
Family and social programs really took off, according to McDonald who notes the club’s swim team doubled in size and the racquets program became very prominent in the Northeast. The
club has also seen a tremendous amount of interest in growth over the past four years in membership.
“All of this paved the way for the last segment of the club to be elevated, which is the clubhouse,” he says.
Balancing golf and family needs
Fairmount Country Club offers members five platform tennis courts, four Har-Tru tennis courts, two golf simulators, chipping area, driving range, a pool and more. The golf course has flourished over continued capital investments in the past 10 to 15 years, but the amenity that seemed to be falling behind was the main clubhouse.
McDonald says the clubhouse is getting a fully renovated experience with the heart of the project centered on the kitchen.
“We want to make sure we can elevate our private event revenue and run that simultaneously with our à la carte dining without interrupting one or the other,” he says.
The renovation project stems from a short-term Master Plan that was introduced to membership in 2023. This plan was inclusive of golf course investments of about $1.8 million to included 63 bunkers, four tee complexes and then setting aside around $10 to $11 million for the clubhouse.
“The thought was to ensure a high level of success on the vote and getting the proprietary members behind this investment,” says McDonald.
The Board of Governors, among many others played a pivotal role, in getting support from the proprietary membership.
With members placing a high emphasis on golf, leadership grouped the two renovation efforts to appeal both to golf-focused members and to the growing segment of young families.
“In 2018 the average age of members was around 59,” he says. “Today that average age is around 52 years old.”
Recognizing the growth in that age group, heavily credited to the introduction of the Timmons House, the club wanted to build on that momentum.
“Our youth population has doubled over the course of five years,” says McDonald. “That’s translated into our summer camp having close to 480 participants, our swim team growing by 102%.”
Designing from the kitchen out
With the golf course renovation being completed in 2024, the club turned its attention to the clubhouse renovation.
“Historically, Fairmount had not been a private event generator because it didn’t have the physical infrastructure in place to support these events,” says McDonald. “For members, private events play a critical role in affordability with food and beverage leading.”
With this in mind, the renovation was designed from the kitchen outward. The club hired a dedicated kitchen designer, to ensure each avenue of the kitchen was appropriately constructed
for future operational needs.
The project covers the entire first floor, touching every space to create a new look, feel, and offer a better flow and service points.
There was also a lot of deferred maintenance that the club had to address. A 27-seat bar serves as the focal point for the main clubhouse creating an organic and energetic atmosphere for membership to congregate, dine and experience all the club has to offer.
During the renovation, the club leveraged its mobile app and made a concerted effort to send bi-monthly updates with photos and descriptions of the process.
Stress-testing the new space
The grand opening of the clubhouse took place this week, and member feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Before the grand opening, McDonald says he and his team want to make sure they’re able to operate smoothly out of the new space–specifically the kitchen.
The clubhouse will open strategically, having small events like limited happy hour buffets to get as many members into the new space without overwhelming the kitchen.
“Our chef came to me with an idea to stress test this by doing an employee appreciation dinner the second or third day after opening,” he says. “Inviting our employees and their families to dinner does two things: shows our employees that we care and enables us to stress test all the operations in the kitchen.”
To complement the newly renovated kitchen, McDonald also hired a new chef to forge the next culinary chapter at Fairmount CC.
“We’re changing a lot of practices to better reflect the modern dining trends because we aren’t just competing against other country clubs, but against neighboring restaurants as well,” he says.
“Our goal is to make Fairmount the destination that people are going to on a weekly basis instead of being a one time option.”
McDonald says Joe Biskie, the new Executive Chef (right), has a high degree of creativity and an appreciation for taking modern staples and putting a creative twist on them, which has been popular among members.
Setting sights on platinum status
McDonald’s goal is for Fairmount Country Club to reach platinum status within the next five years.
To him, that means refining all service points throughout the club and making sure they’re reaching that high impact from the moment members arrive to the moment they leave, expanding food and beverage operations, and investing in Fairmount CC’s people from a professional and development standpoint.
Investing in your people and creating a team that believes in the vision of your club is what McDonald advises other GM’s when it comes to completing a renovation project. Having alignment and strategic support of the Board of Governors, is also a critical factor.
“I would also say to take the time to go through the financial models and implications and make sure you understand the pulse of membership by getting to know their needs and wants,” he says.
Being disciplined with capital outlay over a period of time is a strategy McDonald had Fairmount follow, too.
“We tried to scale back our capital in the years leading up to the renovations,” he says.
As Fairmount CC completed the main clubhouse renovation, McDonald is continuing to drive the philosophy that the member experience comes first and acknowledges the balancing act that is maintaining traditions while introducing new, relevant policies that can be applied across all demographics.
