The Santa Barbara, Calif., club, which is owned by Ty Warner, who also owns Ty Inc., best known for creating Beanie Babies, will be complete by 2017. The golf course, which closed in January, will feature a new irrigation system that will use recycled water, and a new pool will be built while the clubhouse is refurbished.
The major renovation underway at Montecito Country Club in Santa Barbara, Calif., which will include a new golf course, new pool and clubhouse refurbishments, is expected to be finished next year, the Santa Barbara-based Noozhawk reported.
Facilities across the 60-acre campus are either currently being revamped or will be soon, said Bill Medel, project development manager at Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts. For months, the grounds of the sprawling club have been exposed, torn up, bulldozed and graded as the work progresses, Noozhawk reported.
Founded in 1894, the club opened at its current location in 1918. It is one of several South Coast golf and hotel properties owned by billionaire Ty Warner, who also owns plush toy company Ty Inc., best known for the popular Beanie Babies stuffed animals, Noozhawk reported.
Montecito Country Club is putting down turf grass on its new Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course. Using sod instead of seeds, the club said in a statement, decreases the course’s water consumption. The new grass is more drought tolerant than other options, Noozhawk reported.
The course, which closed in January, will feature a new “state-of-the-art” irrigation system that will use recycled water from Santa Barbara’s El Estero Wastewater Treatment Plant, Noozhawk reported.
“One of (Warner’s) visions was to create a world-class golf course and country club,” Medel told Noozhawk.
For now, the club’s golfers are encouraged to play at one of Warner’s other two local courses, Sandpiper Golf Club in Goleta and Rancho San Marcos in the Santa Ynez Valley, Noozhawk reported.
“Other members have been provided an à la carte list of other facilities at a discount that they could use for fitness and for tennis and for swimming” during the closure, Medel said.
The club’s members’ monthly dues have also been deferred until its reopening, he added. In the next few weeks, construction for the new pool will begin, and will be followed by renovations of the Spanish Colonial Revival-style clubhouse. Once all the facilities are ready to go, the club will reopen to its members, Noozhawk reported.
“We’re on track,” Medel said. “We are anticipating having everything completed in 2017.”
The club began discussing renovations in the early 2000s when Warner bought the property, and his company submitted applications to the City of Santa Barbara in 2007 and 2008, before the recession put them on hold following their approval, Noozhawk reported.
The plans were resubmitted soon after, but California’s drought forced the club to take a step back and examine the golf course’s water situation. A precise date for the reopening has not yet been set, Medel said. The golf course itself is expected to be complete late this year, or early next year, Noozhawk reported.
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