The owner of the 90-year-old Solon, Ohio club says he will close it if the membership goal does not seem to be in sight by the end of January. The club is currently about halfway to the desired number and is offering a “phenomenal deal” to try to quickly attract the rest.
The website for Hawthorne Valley Golf Club in Solon, Ohio proclaims the club’s Donald Ross-designed course to be “one of the area’s best-kept secrets,” reported Crain’s Cleveland Business. But Bob Zeman, the club’s General Manager for the last nine years, is now trying to change that and raise Hawthorne Valley’s profile in a hurry, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. The club’s owner, Fred Rzepka, has determined that the club needs to increase its membership to at or very close to 300 members by the end of January, or he will close its doors, ending the employment of what Zeman says is a full-time staff of 30 during the golf season.
Zeman told Crain’s Cleveland Business that Hawthorne Valley, which was private until 2009 and has been semi-private the last six years, is currently about halfway to that membership goal. To help make up the difference in the next month, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported, Hawthorne Valley is now offering memberships at $2,500, a price that includes unlimited golf at the 90-year-old club, plus a private locker and use of the club’s showers and workout facility. Members would also have the option of paying for 30 rounds and dividing them between friends and family.
A source who didn’t want to be identified because he works for a prominent Northeast Ohio golf course told Crain’s Cleveland Business that what Hawthorne Valley is offering is a “phenomenal deal”—but one that the source believed would make it difficult to turn a profit.
But Rzepka, a longtime Hawthorne Valley member who bought the club in 2000, isn’t trying to make money on the course, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. Even if the club gets to its goal of 300 members, “It’s an amount I’ll still lose money with,” Rzepka told the publication.
“It’s not going to be making any money; I’ve been losing money since I bought it,” Rzepka said.
Rzepka and his brother, Peter, established TransCon Builders in 1972, a Cleveland-based company that owns and manages apartment units, senior housing and commercial real estate, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. Golf isn’t how he made his money—which is a good thing, he told the publication, because it’s difficult to do so with the proliferation of courses in Northeast Ohio.
“Guys are getting a good deal [at $2,500], I felt,” Rzepka told Crain’s Cleveland Business about the current membership offer. “I’m giving them another chance to come in and be like a country club.”
Hawthorne Valley’s membership reached 175 in 2013, Zeman told Crain’s Cleveland Business. But then, to trim expenses, the club closed its locker room in 2015, and membership dropped to about 100.
“In the general scheme of things, it did work because we cut a lot of labor out,” Zeman said. “We did cut some costs. But we also lost some members.”
Hawthorne Valley has since regained many of the customers it lost, Zeman told Crain’s Cleveland Business, and the club has a group of longtime members who are attempting to drum up support.
One, attorney Geoffrey Shapiro, told Crain’s Cleveland Business that he’s telling the guys he golfs with what “a gem” Hawthorne Valley is.
“I don’t understand why it’s not more popular than it is,” Shapiro said. “It’s a really hard model to run. To run it and make money, it’s very difficult. [Rzepka] put a lot of money into it.”
Hawthorne Valley also suffered by being closed for 11 days in June of 2015 because of flooding, Zeman told Crain’s Cleveland Business. The month, according to the National Weather Service, was the third-wettest on record at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, with rain falling on all but nine days.
“That’s really a peak month for us,” Zeman said. “Then we were closed six days in early July. When you lose those peak days, you can’t make those up.”
The club then had a “great fall,” Zeman said, but the damage done in June and July resulted in a 20% year-over-year drop in rounds played in 2015. While the number of rounds played at Hawthorne Valley was very consistent in the four years prior, he noted, 2015 brought “a significant dropoff.”
Rzepka, who ended a successful 24-year run as a commissioner of the Cleveland Metroparks at the close of 2010, told Crain’s Cleveland Business that Hawthorne Valley could be an attractive piece of land for potential buyers.
In 2008, residents of Solon approved a plan by TransCon Builders to build a senior housing development on the Hawthorne Valley grounds, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. The rezoning issue, however, was defeated when Ward 5, where the development would have been located, rejected the idea.
“Can I sell [the club]? Yes,” the 84-year-old Rzepka told Crain’s Cleveland Business. “But instead of selling it, they want me to develop it. I’m at a point, I don’t want to develop it.
“Someone will come buy it,” he added. “It’s 200 acres in a great location, right off the Metroparks trail. I’m trying to do the best I can to keep it open.”
If the membership goal isn’t met, Rzepka said he’ll turn the property over to his family. “Chances are if nothing happens, it will stay for the grandkids,” he said. “It’s the largest piece of privately owned land in Solon.”
Peggy Weil Dorfman, Solon’s Economic Development Manager, told Crain’s Cleveland Business that neither the club nor Rzepka had contacted the city about a potential closing. As a result, Dorfman said, Solon has “no official comment at this time.”
Rzepka told Crain’s Cleveland Business that he hopes it doesn’t get to that point. “I tried to do the best I can,” he said.
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